3 Pluralism in Agricultural Extension

Brief Introduction

Hi Friends in our last interaction, we observed the information needs of the farmers and the various issues associated with it. In this particular discussion, we will be talking of the concept of pluralism in agricultural extension. So now you must be thinking of what exactly this term pluralism means.

Pluralism in Agricultural Extension

• The term pluralism means the existence of variety of agencies, service providers, models and institutional arrangements; specially including the public institutions, the private institutions, the community based organizations, the non-governmental organizations, catering to the information and advisory support and service needs of the farmers.
  

In our previous discussion we were talking of information needs. And here the mechanisms; the institutional mechanisms that are available for satisfying the information needs. When the number of such institutions are increasing. So that is where the concept of pluralism comes into the picture. It is not one institution but many institutions are providing the similar services. So why such situation is emerging especially in Indian context. Because the population who is dependent on agriculture is huge. Even today more than 50% of the population is still dependent on agriculture. And the number of service providers to this particular population needs to be also huge, but various players are coming providing similar services. Let us try to understand the issues associated with this.

This table gives you the information that the number of farmers, the institutions are serving. Maybe the extension personnel if you look into the State-wise data. The State of Andhra Pradesh, one extension worker is catering to the needs of 3,162 farmers, and when you look into specially the fertilizer, which is one of the critical input for agriculture. So for 1622 farmers, there is one fertilizer shop that is available. And if you look into from the point of view of net command area. So one extension professional is there to take care of 2608 hectares of the net cropped area, and one fertilizer shop is catering the needs of 1338 hectares of land. What does this mean? And similarly we’ll find the data for various States. It is not much varying based on the geographical situation of the State, the number is almost same.

Strengths of Pluralism

So under such circumstances the role of the agencies which are providing the services comes into the picture. So now let us look into the strengths of this pluralism. Why we should have the number of service providers Maybe they are belonging to the public institutions or the private institutions or the non-governmental institutions or the community based institutions. We need the services of them but what are the strengths of this?

• The diversity in approaches and the target groups covered. So that we can easily reach our clients in  comfortable manner, and their needs are also satisfied. This is one of the important strengths.
  
• We can complement and supplement the efforts of each other. If the public extension mechanism is lacking in any of the efforts, the private can take care of that and if private is not able to do that, public extension agencies can do that, if both are not able to take up some issues the community based organizations or the non-governmental organizations can take into account.
  
• The private agencies can cater to the demands of the farmers, which are already doing largely in case of seed, in case of plant protection chemical, so that the government is not to think about these things, so this is how the work is going on.
  
• Help to overcome the paucity of human resource in the public system which is one of the major issue. In our previous discussion also I mentioned about this. So once the private players are there, the non governmental organizations are there or the community based organizations are there, the paucity of the extension professionals can be easily taken care of. This is what is the strength of pluralism.
  
• It can help address varying needs of the farming community. The public extension mechanism may not be having expertise in all the areas as desired by the farming community. But the private institutions are coming out with their own super-specializations, and accordingly they are catering to the needs of the farmers.
  
• Increase in outreach where public extension system is weak. There are many places where the public extension system is very difficult to reach, specially in the hilly areas, in the desert areas, in the States of Jharkhand or Uttarakhand or the North-Eastern States, where the public extension mechanisms are relatively weak, wherein the private as well as the community based organizations are taking care of such issues.
  
• Provision of newer technologies and skills to the farmers. So the private agencies can easily cater to these issues.

These are all the strengths of pluralism.

Weaknesses

Then coming to the weaknesses of pluralism.

• So there is a possibility of duplication of effort, which the public institutions are also taking up, and at the same time the private institutions are also taking up the similar efforts. So this is one of the possibilities.
  
• This is very very important, that is the contradictory information flow and the resultant gap among the end-users. Specially we need to be very careful about the information flow of the private agencies, because their motto is the maximization of the profits. Then so there are possibilities of creating some hype regarding the products. Such things we cannot expect from the public agencies. Because once the information has to go to the farmers, it has to pass through various channels, wherein the information; the validity of the information, the reliability of the information is being checked by various agencies, which is not possible in case of the private agencies. So this is one of the weakness of this particular concept.
  
• Problem with the quality of the message from the public agencies. Whether we are satisfying the demands of the farmers or our clients is one of the issue, which is largely very weak in case of public extension system.
  
• Motives and objectives of all agencies may not be aligned with the needs of the farmers. Farmer is in need of something else, but as a private agency or as a community based organization or as a non-governmental organization my priorities are something different. So under such circumstances, there are certain gaps that might be existing between these service providers.
  
• It makes the extension system more complex, because of number of players that are coming on the same platform and making use of the same concepts of extension. So that is how the extension concept is becoming a bit complex in this case
  

Opportunities

But now what are the opportunities that we can find here.

• To harness the synergy of all the actors through convergence. Even though the problems what we have counted, the weaknesses what we have counted. We can solve these things once we come on a common platform. This is what is opportunity that we can think of, and address the issues and we can sort out the issues that yes we are going to take up these issues, and you will be taking up these issues. So like that we can address these issues.
  
• Delineation of the roles of each and every agency or actor to avoid the duplication of efforts. In the weaknesses we said that there might be chances of duplication, but if we are on a common platform, we can resolve these issues, we can avoid duplication also.
  
• Offering choice to the farmers among different agencies. So that let the farmer choose whether he wants the services from the public agencies or a private agency or a community based organization or an NGO so that we can provide them services accordingly.
  
• Enhancing the participation in case of extension programs is one of the opportunity, because as on date the real participation of the farming community in the extension programs is relatively less, but with pluralism we can enhance this participation.
  
• Public extension can lead to a pluralistic extension system. Because being part of the government mechanism, they can take the lead and they can lead these pluralism issues and they can take the private and various other actors with them.
  
• Potential to create a linkage of the farmers with other actors and across the value chain. So that once the government takes the lead or the public institutions take the lead to lead this particular concept of pluralism. So then automatically things can take a different shape. This is what is an opportunity.
  

Threats

What are the threats that we can predict.

• Lack of effective coordination among the agencies. Which we are already observing this and over a period of time it may emerge as a threat also.
• Absence of platform for coordination. Some efforts are being carried out through ATMA. But still lot needs to be done in this sector.
• Efforts of collaboration without imbibing the spirit. Specially it happens with the nongovernmental organizations as well as the private sector organizations. So the spirit of extension should not be compromised, while providing the services.
  
• Mismatch between the organizational agenda and the problems due to the hidden agenda. So commonly we observe such things in case of the private agencies. Their agenda is profit maximization, but the agenda of the public institutions is the development of the society, enhancing the living standards of the farmers. So there might be mismatch between these agendas. The hidden agendas as well as the declared agenda.
  
• Lack of leadership and the conflict resolution mechanism. That may hamper the effective collaboration. Because when these institutions are to come together. Even though their target groups are same. Their commodities are same. The way of delivering the mechanisms, all are common. But whether these institutions are ready to come together or if there are any conflict that exist. So do we have that conflict resolution mechanism. This is what is the biggest issue which is acting as a threat.
  
• Political and economic aspects preventing the collaboration. Because the motto of the private agencies and the motto of public extension agencies are diagonally opposite. So that is what is one of the hindering factor.
  
• Doubt about the sustainability of the government promoted convergence initiatives is creating another threat in case of pluralism in extension.
  

If you look into this particular diagram. So the services that we are trying to provide, is the client whom we call him as the farmer. He needs the services. The services can largely be identified as the services to be provided by the extension educators and the services provided by extension service providers. So when we look into the extension educational efforts, they are being taken up by the State Agricultural Universities, the international agencies, the ICAR institutions, the private agencies, the line depts, the non-governmental organizations, cooperative societies. Number of institutions which are involved in educating the farming community.

Similarly when it comes to the service. So the institutions which are involved in the service. That maybe the department of rural development, the cooperative institutions, the state agricultural universities, non governmental organizations, ICAR institutions. So ICAR institutions through their KVK’s as well as the projects, they are reaching the farmers. The line depts, international agencies and the private agencies.

So again I would like to draw your attention here. The institutions that what we discussed under the extension education as well as extension service are almost similar. But so this is what is leading towards the pluralism. The input services are being provided again by line depts. They are also providing lots of inputs to the farmers. Then ICAR institutions are also providing inputs to the farmers. Cooperative, then state agriculture universities, private companies, NGO’s. They are all involved in the inputs and at the same time the information services. So which is again the domain of the public extension agencies. And at the same time private players are also coming there, the similar institutions are there. So this is what we are emphasizing on. Similar services are provided by a number of institutions, where now ultimately the farmer is getting confused; which kind of services is to be accepted and which kind of services not to be accepted.

Interesting Facts About Websites

Information and communication technologies are playing a dominant role here. So by creating number of websites. Just to put before you the latest data. So there are about 1.5 billion websites available by January, 2019. So this shows the number of service providers specially in case of with e-mediation, apart from the traditional medium what we have discussed so far. So if you look into the fate of these websites, only 15% of them are active. 85% of them are not active over a period of time. This is what the report says. And out of this more than 85% of the websites are mobile friendly. It means this is an opportunity for service providers, as well as the service receivers. So Google itself has indexed about 4.5 billion pages on an average 3 web pages per website that we can say so it has index. So knowledge repository is getting ready. But the service receiver also should mend himself to get these services.

But if you look into the information that is available in the language wise. English is dominating. But in case of India so there are multiple languages that are being spoken. So none of these Indian languages are dominating the websites. So this gives an information for the extension mechanism, that so there is a need for development of the content in the local as well as the regional languages, otherwise we cannot provide the appropriate information to the end user.

Conclusion

To conclude, we can say that e-mediation promotes pluralism. The number of service providers. So they can make use of this e-mediated platform by developing content in the regional as well as the location specific information. So it can promote the pluralism. And the associated risk factors need to be taken care of by the institution itself and at the same time the receivers are also playing a role by accepting that information. Then extension professionals face challenge in content development suitable for the e-mediated extension, because there is a lot of information that is available, but now it needs to be treated for suiting to the needs of the farming community. So that is where the role of extension is coming. And wherein again we can make use of the number of players and ultimately we can provide them the appropriate services. In the next session we will be talking of the challenges in ICT application in agriculture.

Thank You.