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Transcript
Hello friends. We have completed 5 weeks of the course on ‘Fundamentals of Agricultural Extension’. In this week we will be having some interesting topics like the Private Extension, the Cyber Extension, the Market Led Extension, Farmer Field School, and Farming Situation based Extension. So these are some of the new trends that we can observe in the concept of extension service as well as providing in the field of dissemination of information. So in today’s class we’ll be taking up the discussion on the privatization of extension services.
Promoting private extension and privatization of extension services are two different approaches used by the national governments, worldwide. So what is the difference between the private extension as well as the privatization of extension services. Let us look at them. The private extension is entirely private, and they use their own revenues to promote technologies, inputs and services. Most of the private profit oriented actors belong to this category. In Indian context we can say that all the private firms, may it be the seed manufacturing company or the fertilizers or the plant protection chemicals and various other agricultural inputs, who are developing their own products as well as marketing their own products, come under this category. The privatization of extension services means, it is consisting of the organizations that receive funds from the government and the donor for implementing the extension programs. They are almost non-profit type and ultimately they are providing the extension services. For example government is giving the responsibility of transfer of technology to certain institutions, and provide necessary financial support, in addition to providing the responsibility of transfer of technology.
And that is how the privatization of extension services is going on. Ultimately the concept reveals that the government is reducing its responsibility or its role in providing the services. And slowly the private institutions or the other non-governmental institutions are taking the role of technology transfer. And that is what is the privatization of extension services lead towards. The private extension indicates that the extension activities are taken up by the private individuals or organizations. Now extension is emerging as one of the important service sectors, wherein individualized services are also being provided. And it is emerging as one of the important service providing institutions in the form of the private extension.
On the contrary privatization is a public policy decision taken by the government to reduce its role in the activity and encourages private sector to take up these roles. It does not mean that the government is withdrawing its role to provide the extension services. Obviously government will continue. But one more additional platform is being provided. Those who are ready to pay and those who can sustain the information services by paying the required amount by the professional. So for them one such opportunity is being provided. It is, this particular initiative can directly be compared with the health services. There are government hospitals. There are private hospitals. Similarly there are government public extension services. There are private extension services. So now the choice is with the end-user, what type of extension services that he wants to avail.
Public service extensions are free of cost. Similarly the government hospitals are providing the health services free of cost. On the contrary in case of private hospitals we need to pay for the services. Similarly we need to pay for the private extension services. The privatization of extension services can take place in broadly in two ways. Dismantling privatization and controlled privatization. What is this dismantling privatization? Wherein in some sectors or in some areas, government totally withdraws, close down or abandon the services and the existing staff is terminated and the entire responsibility is handed over to the private organizations. So these type of things that we can see in some of the European countries as well as in Australia, New-Zealand, which have totally privatized these extension services. But in Indian context it is not so.
In case of controlled privatization, so the concepts like the contracting. Government contracts some of the private companies or the non-governmental organizations to offer specific extension services. Specially in case of the Indian context, the services like the artificial insemination or the vaccination so on and so forth. Some services are being provided to the non-governmental organizations or some of the institutions they will be providing the services to the people, and in turn they get the renovation from the government institution.
And in case of the franchisee agreements between the government and the institution. The government grants the private entities the authority to provide a particular service. The users receive and pay for services directly. But the government may monitor the entire performance. The use of artificial insemination services in case of animal husbandry sector. Then the animal vaccinations. So these are some of the programs that the government is giving on the franchisee basis. The private extension initiatives in India include, the dealing with the seeds, fertilizers and pesticides and equipments. Predominantly these things are under the control of the private organizations.
When we come to the government sector seed providing institutions like the National Seed Corporation or the respective State Seed Corporation, they have the limited area to cover. But the private sector is dominantly handling all these situations. The large business firms involved in manufacture and sale of inputs are taking the lead role here. Then the purchase of outputs in the form of the trading. So wherein the exploitation of the farmer which used to take place. But now it is being overcome with the institution of setup like the farmer producer company. But that is also one of the example that we can say. Then farmer organizations and producer cooperatives, which are largely into this providing the extension services. The non-governmental organizations which spread throughout the country, so they are also playing the dominant role in providing the extension services.
The media organizations and the web based knowledge providers are also providing the extension services. Till recently most of the web based extension services were free of cost. But slowly they are going for realization of the cost in case of the web based services also. So they need to pay if they want the specific information, which is going to help them in increasing their agricultural production. The financial institutions involved in the rural credit delivery are also example of this privatization of extension services. And the consultancy services largely provided by the professionals trained in specific subjects or the disciplines or the specializations of agriculture and allied sciences.
The advantages of this privatization include. It reduces the economic burden on the government and it increases the efficiency in case of extension services. The moment you start paying for the information that you are going to get. The information provider is at risk. He will be providing only those information, which are going to be beneficial for you, and if it is not benefiting you, the person who has paid may ask you good number of questions, and they may, you will be held accountable for that piece of information. And that is how the service provider tries to provide only that information. And that is how efficiency can be brought under this particular system. Then it increases the accountability of the extension agents and increases the compentency of the research system, because we will be finding a specific solution for the problem that the community is facing.
So along with these advantages, there are certain disadvantages of this privatization also, which were reported by Sulaiman and Gadewar in 1994, which says that. There may be possibility of contradictory message flow because you don’t have any control over the information that is being provided. As long as it was under the control of the public extension system, every message that go through this extension system had a control over the public extension mechanism. But when it is privatized, so you cannot have the control over that. So that is one of the disadvantage. Then it may be creating a negative impact on sustainability because the private institutions are involved in maximization of their own profit. The service takes the backseat and hence it may influence the process. Then the sidelined educational role, because they will be having the purpose of profit maximization and reaching the maximum number of people for realization of more profit. And that is how the goal of extension, that is providing them the appropriate education may take the backseat. Then lesser contact between the farmers and extension professionals, so that is another drawback of the privatization of extension.
Then in due course of time the technology may become high cost or very costly, because there might be situation that the private sector is going to dominate the service sector and then they may increase the price of the technology exorbitantly. Then increase in the regional imbalances may be because of the privatization, because of the dominance of the private sector and the privatized extension services. So these are some of the disadvantages of the privatization of extension services.
So let me scan through some of the important institutions which are providing the privatized extension services in which the dominant institutions which is providing the privatized extension services are the ITC’s E-Choupal, which is providing the marketing support for the farmers along with the information inputs, which has spread over 31,000 villages, established 5,200 kiosks in 6 States including Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. Coming to the second institution, that is Mahindra Shubh Labh Company. They are providing one stop shops for the farmers. The Mahindra Shubh Labh package service include access to the scientific farming practices, mechanized operations, access to finance and quality inputs including seeds and chemicals. Then the Tata Kissan Sansar. You can become a member of Tata Kissan Sansar, become the member of the family and get the services which are provided by the Tata groups of institutions.Tarahaat.com is the web based privatized extension service established in the year 1999 in the State of Uttar Pradesh, specially providing the ebusiness model for the benefit of farmers, by registering the farmers, and they are providing the marketing support to the farmers.
To conclude we can say that public sector extension is not totally free from limitations. With all that limitations it is providing all the services but with some limitations. Then it makes the extension service providers more accountable. This we have already said. So in case of the privatized model, the efficiency, the system of extension is envisaged. But one drawback is the farmer may not be in a position to pay for the services that he is giving. And for that so we have alternative mechanisms like the public extension services are already in operation. In a healthy competition between the public and private extension, the ultimate beneficiary is going to be the farmer or the end-user, because if he requires a specialized information, super specialized information. So there are institutions, there are organizations under the private sector. So that he can pay and get the information and establish a perfect farming system, which he wants to establish. So this is in a nutshell about the privatization of extension services. In the next class we will be discussing about the concept of cyber extension.
Thank You.
