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coverage and low quality of both public and private extension services, inadequate penetration of e-extension (particularly among lower-middle-income countries), chronic underfunding, and continued reliance on development partners for funding. Most extension systems still tend to be supply-driven, with weak links between knowledge providers and the farms and firms that need it, resulting in levels of technology adoption and innovation among farms and firms that are well below potential. Agricultural extension services have the potential to increase returns to innovation, but most require reform, better integration of e-extension, and adequate and sustained funding. Evidence from global extension reviews indicates that demand-driven, pluralistic, and decentralized extension systems—ones with adequate coverage and quality, and that integrate e-extension—can better serve the needs of a diverse and often scattered clientele. Efforts to promote such extension systems may require reform of core extension policies, capacity building among both public and private service providers, collective action among smallholders for promoting scale economies, professional management, and systematic demand articulation, as well as financial incentives for private and third-party service providers and for improved ICT connectivity. The countries that have been more successful in upgrading their agricultural extension systems have taken the actions outlined in box 7.3.
BOX 7.3
Good practices for policies on agricultural extension services The following good practices have been implemented by countries that have more successfully upgraded their agricultural extension services: • Ensuring adequate and sustained funding to develop more demand-driven, pluralistic, and decentralized extension systems (that is, improved coverage, content, and quality, realized in some dimensions in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam) with integration of e-extension to improve the returns to agricultural innovation (for example, e-centers in China). • Adjusting policies to enhance pluralism and enable greater private and third-party service delivery (reforming laws, strengthening financial incentives, increasing capacity). • Increasing integration of e-extension, for example, through improved information and communication technology connectivity and farmer capacity, price incentives for information
and communication technology suppliers, and dedicated training programs to upgrade the skills of public and private extension agents and farmers (for example, e-training in China, the Philippines, and Thailand). • Making extension services more demand-driven and innovation processes more inclusive by facilitating collective action among smallholders (as in China, Indonesia, and Thailand); setting up platforms and brokers (as in Chile, and to some extent China, Malaysia, and Thailand); establishing technology incubators and centers for technology transfer at the local and provincial levels (as in Vietnam) and other organizational forms of extension-research-farm or -firm links that systematically articulate farmer and firm demand for and feedback on knowledge and innovations (for example, technology demonstrations, cooperatives, and industry associations, as in China and Indonesia).
