Community Based Extension, the farmers' extension

Over the years extension delivery has mainly been the Training and Visit, Contact farmer or Farmer-to-Farmer and Transfer of Technology approaches. These approaches have not been effective in making available the appropriate technologies and agricultural information to farmers. The community-based extension system addresses the inadequacy of extension services provision and improves access to extension services to meet farmer¿s needs. Agricultural extension serves as the source of information on new technologies, provides a channel for farmers' problems to be identified for research and formulation of agricultural policies and a framework for organizing farmers to gain access to production resources such as credit, inputs and information. This book shows a new dimension to extension delivery to farmers and focuses on how innovations for extension delivery at the community level revolves around persons who are ¿experts¿ on different aspects of indigenous knowledge in farming. The book provides useful lessons for ministries of agriculture, professional extension workers and organizations who may be considering effective innovation dissemination strategies at the community level.