The Fallacy of Universal Solutions in Extension

The universal application of the T&V model of agricultural extension in more than 50 countries is one of agricultural development’s best known failures. The approach worked well in places where it was originally developed, but proved inappropriate almost everywhere else. In the September edition of the LINK News Bulletin, Rasheed Sulaiman V. and Andy Hall worry that an apparently successful extension innovation piloted in India is set to suffer a similar fate.

Developed in India, ATMA — Agricultural Technology Management Agency — was part of a large World Bank-supported project aimed at strengthening and reforming the agricultural research and extension system. The central idea of the ATMA model was that it would act as a mechanism to bring together the different agencies involved in extension in a district.

However, ATMA is currently facing numerous implementation challenges, including:

• Insufficient support
• Mismatch with diversity of application contexts
• Lack of local ownership
• Capacity and institutional constraints

ATMA seems to be going the T&V way and it is only a matter of time before we will hear people talking about it as yet another model that failed due its universal promotion. Is there an alternative to promoting turnkey, “one-size fits all” approaches in countries as vast as India — where agriculture-related poverty needs urgent solutions? Is extension still a relevant concept? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Four Horsemen of the Global Economic System

Agriculture in South Asia faces the spectre of the four modern day apocalyptic horsemen of the global economic system — hunger, climate change, trade competition and knowledge exclusion. In July’s LINK LOOK Andy Hall and Rasheed Sulaiman V. argued that South Asia — a region that is home to half the world’s poor — is vulnerable to these challenges because of weaknesses in current patterns of agricultural innovation capacity. They also, however, argued that many of the capacity building blocks are already in place and that a few relatively simple institutional changes could unleash powerful creative forces capable of converting these harbingers of doom — Hunger, Climate Change, Trade Competition and Knowledge Exclusion — into poverty-reducing opportunities.

How well placed is agricultural research to tackle the looming crisis in South Asia? Not very well, according to Andy and Rasheed. And this is not necessarily because South Asian countries lack scientific capacity; in fact, it’s quite the opposite in India with its highly-developed agricultural science tradition. Numerous examples point to the fact that the problem lies in — among other things — the low priority given to research on sustainable agriculture; the lack of scientific validation and support of farmers’ own innovations; and the moribund and outdated agricultural extension services.
The great paradox of South Asia is not so much that it has scientific capabilities and cannot make science count for development, but rather that it has such a rich experience of innovations in research and technology practice that its public research organisations could learn from, but don’t. Andy and Rasheed discuss what they think needs to be undertaken to tackle the looming crisis (see http://www.innovationstudies.org/linklook/200807.html). What do you think? Please comment below.