Science and Technology Mailing List Archive

["Dick Tinsley" <<address removed>>]

My final question on extension for the day is to ask which is going to have
a bigger impact on smallholder production.  promoting technology via an
extension program as outlined in the previous messages or developing the
support services that will provide the farmers the means to implement their
crop husbandry in a more timely manner.

Even as an Agronomist anchored in the technology development and extension
section, I would have endorse developing the support services as the more
effective means of assisting smallholder increase their production and well
being.

There is also another aspect of extension that is not as well know but could
be really important.  That is "integration".  It is the process of reviewing
a proposed intervention from both the intervention perspective as well as
the farming system into which it is being proposed and looking at what
adjustment in either will enhance the acceptance.  This really ends up
looking at the "operational constrants" hindering wide spread acceptance and
then identifying "supporting technologies" that will provide the farmers the
means to better accept the innovation.

This is really the area where the farming systems programs should have
concentrated, but they got diverted elsewhere.

Dick Tinsley


=============================================================
To send a reply to this message that goes to all list members,
make sure that you send your reply to <address removed>

To unsubscribe from this list, send an email to "<address removed>", with the 
message body:

unsubscribe science-and-technology <your-email-address>