The first Millennium Development Goal aims to reduce malnutrition by half by 2015. Around 800 million people – one in five of those living in developing countries – are currently undernourished. To meet the goal, this number will need to be reduced by at least 20 million per year. This is more than twice as fast as the current annual reduction of about 8 million. One way to achieve this is to improve agricultural extension services.

Research from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) assesses the role of agricultural training and extension services working to resolve the world’s serious food security challenge. These extension services are constantly changing. Their functions and tasks are increasingly being performed by private extension providers as well as by the public sector. These include non-profit, non-governmental organisations, private companies, rural producer organisations, private advisers and national, state and district services providers.

The research notes that:

• The importance of communication in rural development is often ignored.
• Small-scale producers are limited by a lack of marketing information and knowledge of how to meet quality standards.
• Some farmer groups are led by people whose own political ambitions inhibit farmers’ ability to improve their circumstances.
• Extension services neglect women and young people: it is often forgotten that women are key to the production, processing, storage and marketing of agricultural products.

Governments must urgently create a national policy agenda on food security and income generation for the rural poor. This will identify agricultural extension and information services as vital to a national food security network. Food security must be seen as having a public as well as economic benefit.

The FAO’s Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS) aims to help low-income countries to improve their food security through rapid increases in food production and productivity. This is being achieved by reducing year-to-year variability in food production, and by improving people's access to food. Successful SPFS projects have demonstrated that food security and improved income generation can both be achieved.

Agricultural extension services are responding to the need to become more effective, more responsive to clients and less costly to governments. To continue this, policymakers need to:

• Challenge the attitudes of extension workers and managers towards farmer groups. They must change the common view that farmers are incapable of managing production technologies and financial resources.
• Develop the ability of small farmers’ groups to help themselves, rather than depend on outside assistance.
• Help poor farmers gain access to capital, through savings, credit for agricultural production and other small-scale developments, both agricultural and non-agricultural.
• Ensure that assistance is not just given to improving agricultural productivity:  farmers must be supported to diversify into non-farm activities.
• Provide information about markets to small producers, especially relating to fruit and vegetables.
• Provide funds for investments in infrastructure, such as roads, power and communication networks, and also to improve security and access to markets.

A new vision of rural development must extend beyond agriculture and recognise the income potential of non-agricultural activities, ecotourism and off-farm activities. Dealing with poverty and hunger requires greater determination to confront the problems that small farmers and their families face in their daily struggle for survival.

Source(s):
‘Agricultural extension, rural development and the food security challenge’ by William McLeod Rivera in collaboration with M. Kalim Qamar, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2003 Full document.

Funded by: Food and Agriculture Organization

id21 Research Highlight: 22 February 2005

Further Information:
William McLeod Rivera
Institute of Applied Agriculture
3119 Jull Hall
University of Maryland
College Park
MD 20742-2525
USA

Tel: +1 (0) 301 405-1253
Fax: +1 (0) 301 314-9343
Contact the contributor: wr@umd.edu

Food and Agriculture Organization

M. Kalim Qamar
Agricultural Training and Extension
Food and Agriculture Organization
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00100 Rome
Italy

Tel: +39 (0) 6 57054203
Fax: +39 (0) 6 5705 3699
Contact the contributor: Kalim.Qamar@fao.org

Institute of Applied Agriculture, University of Maryland, USA

Other related links:
'Bringing agricultural extension into action against HIV/AIDS in Africa'

'Communicating information for rural development'

'Increasing women's role in food security in Africa'

'Food security - putting policy into practice'

'Balancing food security and sustainability: the challenges of rice production'

Special Programme for Food Security