THE MEANING OF EXTENSION WHAT IS EXTENSION Throughout

THE MEANING OF EXTENSION WHAT IS EXTENSION? Throughout history, there have existed patterns of agricultural knowledge exchange with some people (e. g. religious leaders, traders, elders, etc. ) often playing special “advisory” roles in this respect. 1

CONT. D • There existed, more or less institutional forms of agricultural extension in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Phoenicia. The term itself is more recent; it originates from academia, and its common use was first recorded in Britain in the 1840’s in the context of university extension or extension of the university. 2

CONT. D • By the 1880’s the work was being referred to as the extension movement. In this movement the university extended its work beyond the campus. A similar thing happened in the Untied States indicating that extension education should not be limited to the campus but rather extended to people living everywhere. 3

CONT. D • Here extension is seen as a form of adult education in which the teachers are the staff and members of the university. • Most English speaking countries use the term extension. However in other languages different words exist to describe similar phenomena. 4

CONT. D • In Dutch it means lighting the pathway ahead to help people find their way. • In Indonesia the meaning is similar, lighting the way ahead with a torch. • The British and Germans talk of advisory work which has connotations of an expert giving advice, but leaving the final responsibility for selecting the way forward with the client. 5

MEANING CONT. D • The Austrians speak of stimulating one to go in a desirable direction, which again is similar to the Korean term for rural guidance. • Finally the French speak of vulgarisation, which stresses the need to simplify the message for the common man, while the Spanish sometimes use the word “capacitacion”, which indicates the intention to improve people’s skills although it is used to mean training. 6

EVOLVING DEFINITIONS OF EXTENSION • The initial meanings of the term extension – as well as international equivalents of the termhave been influenced significantly by enlightenment thinking. • The basic thrust of this meaning is that ‘the common folk’ are to a degree ‘living in the dark’ and that there is the need for well educated people to ‘shed some light’ on their situation by means of educational activities. 7

CONT’D • This means that the relationship that existed between clients was like the patient – doctor or teacher / student or parent / child, placing the extension agent in an ‘expert’ and ‘sending’ position and their audience in a ‘receiving’ and ‘listening’ role. 8

CONT’D • In line with this tradition, many definitions of agricultural extension emphasize its educational dimensions: • Extension is a service or system which assists farm people through educational procedures in improving farming methods and techniques, increasing production efficiency and income, bettering and lifting their levels of social and educational standards (Maunder, 1973) 9

CONT’D • Extension is an ongoing process of getting useful information to people ( the communicative dimension) and then assisting those people to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to utilize effectively this information and technology (the educational dimension). 10

CONT’D • The emphasis was mostly on the utilization of scientific advances in agriculture to benefit humanity. • It has also been realized that successful innovations require much input from both farmers as well as from scientists. 11

CONT. D • Other definitions are: • Agricultural extension: Assistance to farmers to help them to identify and analyze their production problems and to become aware of opportunities for improvement. 12

OTHER DEFS. CONT • Extension is a deliberate and systematic attempt – by means of the transfer of knowledge and insight – to help and or develop someone in such a way that the person is able to take decisions in a specific situation with a maximum level of independence, consciousness, and conformity with his own interest and well being. 13

DEFS CONT • ‘Extension involves the conscious use of communication of information to help people form sound opinions and make good decisions’ • These definitions above still carry the idea that ‘extension’ is mainly about ‘help’ in the interest of the farmer. 14

DEFS CONT. • Other definitions that have emerged are: • ‘Extension is helping behaviour consisting of – or preceding – the transfer of information, usually with the explicit intention of changing mentality and behaviour in a direction that has been formulated in a wider policy context’ 15

OTHER DEFS CONT. • Extension is a professional communication intervention deployed by an institution to induce change in a voluntary behaviour with a presumed public or collective utility’ (Rolling, 1988). • The phrase ‘presumed public’ added by Rolling is important, because it distinguishes extension from other forms of communication intervention such as: 16

ROLLING’S DEF. CONT • Commercial advertising where the goal is to sell products in the interest of a limited group; • Political propaganda, where the goal is to influence people’s ideological beliefs and or perceptions of reality in order for some to gain or maintain power; • and Public relations, where the goal is to manage one’s own reputation or public image. 17

CONT. D • Rolling’s definition explains the fact that extensionists should not be involved in, for example, trade, advertising, or political propaganda, and if they are, this cannot be regarded as ‘extension’. 18

REDEFINITION OF EXTENSION • Rollings and Van Woerkum have attempted to redefine extension as: • ‘A series of professional communicative interventions amid related interactions that is meant, among others, to develop and or induce novel patterns of coordination and adjustment between people, technical services and natural phenomena, in a direction that supposedly helps to resolve problematic situations, which may be defined differently by different actors involved’ 19

Redefinition • The essential points that emerge in this definition are: • The definition maintains that extension is a professional activity practiced by people who are somehow paid and or rewarded by it. Thus everyday communicative interaction between farmers is not termed extension even if they contribute to innovation 20

Redefinition cont • Extension is regarded as an intervention as it is usually subsidized or paid for by external agencies whose aspirations for doing so are not the same as those of the supposed beneficiaries. • However extension can only be effective if there is an overlap between the aspirations of both donor agencies and recipients. 21

Cont’d • Extension draws heavily on communication as a strategy for furthering aspiration. Communication is the process through which people exchange meaning. • It is an activity that is used to bring about cognitive changes, used as a trigger for other forms of change (e. g. human practices, growth of crops, rearing of animals, 22

Cont’d • water availability, regulations etc. ) At the same time the emphasis on communication marks a shift away from a focus on education to a focus on learning. • Extension is a process involving a series of communicative interventions and interactions. It is not a once only event. 23

cont • Extension takes place amid other interactions, which indicates that there are many other interactions going on between people that do not involve extension or extension agents, but which are very relevant to the process. E. g. interaction of farmers with each, with service providers, religious leaders etc. all of which have an impact on innovation processes. 24

Cont. • Whenever people interact, multiple goals and interventions play a role. Change agents too have other aspirations, some mundane, that impinge on the way they go about their work; these may include pleasing their boss, acquiring social status, reserving time for side issues, visiting some farmers homes regularly etc. 25

Cont. • The statement that extension aims to develop and or induce innovation emphasizes that we cannot simply look at extension as ‘dissemination of innovations’. The term to induce is chosen to capture the mixture of dissemination and adaptation. Room is left for all kinds of social processes including social learning, network building, human capacity building etc. 26

Cont. • The innovations that extension seeks to contribute are regarded as novel patterns of coordination and adjustment between people, technical devices and natural phenomena. The latter phrase is used to convey that effective innovations – especially in the field of agriculture and resource management – include a balanced mixture of social, technical and natural elements and processes. 27

Cont. • Extension activities are usually legitimized by referring the need for solving a problematic situation. Whether or not this problematic situation is resolved, and to what extent, is of course something that remains to be seen as the process unfolds. Hence the use of the term supposedly in the definition 28

Cont. • As can be seen attempts have been made to arrive at a descriptive definition of extension. The reason is that one cannot hope to contribute to extension without describing what it entails in practice. 29

Explanations • Extension services are different from advisory services. Advisory services were put in place to assist farmers to increase their productivity without taking the farmers personal wishes and their families into consideration. 30

Explanations cont • In the true sense of the word, extension agents focus on the development of their farmers. • They serve as friends, counselors and teachers to the farmers. They encourage their farmers to discuss their living conditions, have a clearer insight to their problems and decide how to overcome these problems either individually or cooperatively to better their living conditions. 31

Explanations cont. • They encourage their farmers to work collaboratively with them so that they can feel that any plan agreed upon is theirs rather than the officials concerned. 32