Funding and delivering agricultural extension in India

The number and types of organizations providing extension services in India have shown an increase over the last two decades. The Department of Agriculture (DoA) continues to dominate extension. The DoA has been facing a number of constraints and without a total restructuring, its ability to provide services demanded by farmers is under serious doubt. The performance of private extension agents varies widely and their presence is more skewed towards well-endowed regions. A good number of farmers are willing and able to pay for quality services especially in the area of plant protection and training programs. With the changing nature of Indian agriculture, the institutional diversity in provision of extension services would increase in coming years. Public sector extension needs to make conscious efforts to learn from ongoing institutional experiments and should be restructured with the necessary skills and capacities to integrate information and expertise available in different organizations