Agricultural transformation and development are critical to the livelihoods of more than a billion small-scale farmers and other rural people in developing countries. Extension and advisory services play an important role in such transformation and can assist farmers with advice and information, brokering and facilitating innovations and relationships, and dealing with risks and disasters. Agricultural Extension: Global Status and Performance in Selected Countries provides a global overview of agricultural extension and advisory services, assesses and compares extension systems at the national and regional levels, examines the performance of extension approaches in a selected set of country cases, and shares lessons and policy insights. Drawing on both primary and secondary data, the book contributes to the literature on extension by applying a common and comprehensive framework — the “best-fit” approach — to assessments of extension systems, which allows for comparison across cases and geographies. Insights from the research support reforms — in governance, capacity, management, and advisory methods — to improve outcomes, enhance financial sustainability, and achieve greater scale. Agricultural Extension should be a valuable resource for policymakers, extension practitioners, and others concerned with agricultural development.

Agricultural extension provides the critical connection from agricultural innovation and discovery to durable improvements at scale, as farmers and other actors in the rural economy learn, adapt, and innovate with new technologies and practices. However, lack of capacity and performance of agricultural extension in lower- and middle-income countries is an ongoing concern. Research on agricultural extension and advisory services (in short, extension) has been an integral part of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) since its inception. This brief synthesizes key findings from research funded by and linked to PIM from 2012 to 2021, presenting lessons learned and a vision for the future of extension. A list of all PIM-related extension and advisory services research is provided at the end. Designing and implementing effective provision of extension is complex, and efforts to strengthen extension services often fall into a trap of adopting “best practice” blueprint approaches that are not well-tailored to local conditions. An expansive literature examines the promises and pitfalls of common approaches, including training-and-visit extension systems, farmer field schools, and many others (Anderson and Feder 2004; Anderson et al. 2006; Waddington and White 2014; Scoones and Thompson 2009). To understand extension systems and build evidence for what works and where, the “best-fit” framework, a widely recognized approach developed by Birner and colleagues (2009) and adapted by Davis and Spielman (2017), offers a simple impact chain approach (Figure 1). The framework focuses on a defined set of extension service characteristics that affect performance: governance structures and funding; organizational and management capacities and cultures; methods; and community engagement — all of which are subject to external factors such as the policy environment, agroecological conditions, and farming-system heterogeneity. To enhance extension performance and, ultimately, a wide range of outcomes and impacts, new and innovative interventions can be applied and adapted within this set of extension characteristics.

This publication contains twelve modules which cover a selection of major reform measures in agricultural extension being promulgated and implemented internationally, such as linking farmers to markets, making advisory services more demand-driven, promoting pluralistic advisory systems, and enhancing the role of advisory services within agricultural innovation systems. The reform issues consider the changing roles of the various public, private and non-governmental providers, and highlights the collaboration required to create synergies for more efficient and effective high quality services responding to the needs and demands of smallholder farmers. The modules draw on reform experiences worldwide and provide an introduction, definitions and a discussion for each specific reform measure, as well as case studies, tools, exercises and a reference list. The reform topics are envisaged for policy-makers, management and senior staff of institutions providing agricultural and rural advisory services. It can also be very useful for students studying agriculture, rural development, and extension in particular. This is a substantially updated version of the 2009 publication of the same title, but with only nine modules. These nine modules were restructured and up-dated, and three modules were added. The layout of the modules changed to allow a better overview for the reader.

These guidelines aim to respond to these questions and support practitioners in translating the Gender-Sensitive Value Chain Framework, developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) into action (FAO, 2016a). Building on FAO’s comparative advantage on gender in agriculture and food security, these guidelines are primarily intended to assist practitioners in designing and implementing interventions that provide women and men with equal opportunities to benefit from agrifood value chain development. They offer practical tools and examples of successful approaches to foster a more systematic integration of gender equality dimensions in value chain interventions in the agricultural sector and enhance the social impact of these interventions.

Operational guidelines on how to provide cost- effective agricultural extension services to women farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.