Agricultural Extension Debatable Issues

Extension, and extension workers in particular, drive the agricultural modernization process and the rest of those in associated professions and positions are ‘support staff.’ Whether you are a lecturer, a professor, a dean, a researcher, an extension director or a head of a non-government organization, if your mission is to develop smallholder agriculture at farmer level, you are supporting the field extension worker to achieve your/farmers’ goals. To this extent, it is no surprise that, when no perceptible improvement takes place at the farmer level, the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of extension. Despite its importance, agricultural extension is the most misunderstood of all agricultural disciplines, and the lack of understanding reveals itself in several ways. This paper discusses some of the misconceptions and debatable issues that affect the way extension is supported, the way it is structured, the way it is staffed and the way extension workers are trained and capacitated. The misconceptions also affect the kinds and levels of expectations people have of extension. The misconceptions include: unending definitions of extension, expanding extension concepts, blaming extension for perceived failures in agriculture, undermining the extension discipline, inadequacies in extension teaching and training, markets and the role of extension and structural changes in extension. The origins of some of these debatable issues can be traced to development partners who come with their conceptions of what is needed while others come from development theorists who have not done any extension work in the field. Unfortunately, there are no strong extension professional associations in many African countries that could: raise the profile of extension as a discipline, interrogate some of the agricultural development interventions before implementation and help clear some of the misconceptions. In the absence of extension platforms, extensionists operate as individuals, each struggling the best way they know how to make a difference at the farmer level. There is no way of harnessing the experiences the individuals are going through for purposes of learning, sharing and developing common positions. The purpose of this paper is to promote debate on, and scrutiny of these extension issues which are often presented as facts and absolute truths.