Agriculture extension

The exension education which helps in extending the scientific knowledge of agriculture to the    farming community for the enhancement of agricultural production is called agriculture extension.  It also helps in value addition of the products as well as proper marketing of the commodities along with the application of latest technologies for increasing income of the farming community.

Properly cultivated land

Agriculture extension and agriculture development

Agriculture plays an important role in the development of agriculture. It awares the farmers to felt their needs and provides te way to their felt needs. Some of the major roles of agriculture extension in the devlopment of agriculture are explained below :-

• Extension helps to change the attitude of the farmer towards positive direction, increases their knowledge, and enhance their skills such that their skills meet modern requirements. Attitude, knowledge and skills of the farmers an be changed with the help of extension education and the behaviour of the farmer can be directed towards desired direction.

• The extension teaching methods are very effective teaching method to transfer the knowledge from extension worker to learner. It involves most of the practical work and farmers observe the benefits by themselves.  The extemsion education works with the pinciples of learning by doing and seeing is believing approach.

• Traning and visit system of agriculture extenion is found to be effective and agriculture extension contribute a lot in promoting green revolution. Training and visit system was helpful in promoting green revolution and and spread the green revolution in South Asia.

•  Agriculture extension had played a major role developing the leadership quality among farmers and helps in organizing farmers into groups such as farmers interest groups and other farmers oranisation for the development of agriculture an to raise the voice of farmers for their demands. It helps in increasing the income of the farmers and develop their agro buisness.

Principles of agriculture extension

There are several objectives of agriculture extension. Some of these objectives are described here:-

• Principle of Cultural difference- There are cultural difference between the farmers and the extension agent. Difference maybe in their habit and any other cultural factors. So provide success to the extension work it should be in hormony with the cultures of the farmers and the extension workers.

• Gross root Principle-  Extension work should be fit in the local situation and should start with the local people keeping in mind the availability of natural resources of that region. It should start with the existing situation and purely based on what the local people have initially.  

• Indegeneous knowlede principle- Extension worker should not avoid the Indigeneous knowledge system,  it should not be ignored by them and indegenous knowledge  should be involved in their project. Instead of ignoring the indegenous knowledge system it should be implemented in the life of the farmers.

The above principle shows the importance of extension education in the development of agriculture and role of extension education in changing the attitude, knowledge and skills of the farmers towards positive direction, which directly influence the agriculture production and thus develop the agriculture conditions overall.  Seeing is beleiving and learning by doing is a great approach of the extension worker to train the farmers and to enhance their skills.