Integrated Extension and Advisory Services for Agricultural Diversification: Lessons from the ‘Rupantar’ Project in the Eastern Gangetic Plains

In this Good Practice Note, Bhuvana and Ravi discuss Rupantar’s systems approach to enable smallholder livelihood diversification across the Eastern Gangetic Plains. 

CONTEXT 

Small and marginal farmers in the Eastern Gangetic Plain (EGP), spanning Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, are trapped in rice-wheat monocultures, with limited escape from poverty, food insecurity, and climate vulnerability. Despite decades of technology promotion, diversification remains low, not because of a lack of technologies, but because weak extension and advisory services (EAS) prevent farmers from adopting them. Failures stem from misalignment among technologies, service delivery, markets, and policies, further compounded by water scarcity, input and credit constraints, weak mechanisation, and poor market links, especially for marginal, small, and landless farmers.

This good practice note discusses how the RUPANTAR project (Box 1) repositions extension from one-time information delivery to a systems approach that integrates technical advice, service delivery, participatory pathway design, and multi-stakeholder coordination to promote diversification in the EGP.

GOOD PRACTICES

Rupantar’s approach uses five interlocking practices to move beyond one‑time, top‑down technology promotion. It applies a structured, iterative process (Figure 1) to select, implement, and promote diversification pathways—bundles of interventions, policies, and technologies that address smallholder constraints in the EGP—defined collaboratively by multiple actors.

Rupantar’s system approach to extension and advisory services (EAS) 

Understanding context through multiple lenses

Before designing interventions, Rupantar invested 1.5 years analysing the agri-food system context, asking what worked, what did not, and why. The team conducted baseline surveys with 1,800 farmers and spouses, 27 case studies, 18 gender-segregated focus group discussions, village mapping, household profiling by typology (marginal, small, landless), and multi-stakeholder workshops involving state departments, universities, NGOs, farmers, and research organisations across the EGP. Farmer typologies were mapped separately, recognising that landless and small landholders face different constraints. Findings revealed that past diversification failures stemmed not from technology gaps but from misalignments among technology, service delivery, markets, and policy.

Decide together: Participatory pathway selection using ScAD

Rather than prescribing interventions, Rupantar applied the Scaling Assessment and Discussion (ScAD) tool to enable participatory pathway selection, bringing together varied actors (Table 1) to jointly decide what to scale, how, and who should lead. This yielded nine context-specific interventions across three pathways (Table 2) tailored to different farmer realities.

Table 1: Actors and their roles in Rupantar

Table 2: Diversification pathways along with interventions across EGP

Link advice to action: Integrated EAS – “Show-Try-Supply-Support”

Rupantar coordinated technical advice with complementary services (Table 3). Extension workers (personnel from agricultural extension departments, NGOs, cooperatives, FPCs, community-level service providers) acted as institutional brokers, negotiating with input suppliers, coordinating vaccination camps, and linking farmers to FPOs and cooperatives, building skills that traditional extension rarely develops.

Table 3: EAS coordinated actions under Rupantar

Design for inclusion: Gender-responsive delivery

Non-plot/livestock pathways targeted land-constrained women-headed households. Pre-ScAD consultations with women and landless farmers shaped priorities. Training suited women’s schedules through women’s SHGs: 34 women trained in Bangladesh poultry (100% women participation); 84% women in India’s goat pathway.

Learn while doing: Theory- led monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL)

Rupantar’s MEL framework tracked outcomes across individual, household, community, and system levels, focusing on sustainability and trade‑offs, not just yield. Seasonal monitoring covered adoption, incomes, labour, gender, climate shocks, markets, diet, nutrition, and knowledge. Mid‑season case studies informed same-season adaptations, such as extending interventions across preceding and succeeding rice crops in India. At the same time, quarterly field‑team workshops used MEL as an iterative process to shape implementation rather than just end‑of‑project evaluation.

CHALLENGES

Last-mile input delivery gaps

Recommended inputs (e.g., Yellow Sarson in India; quality fodder seed for Nepal dairy) were often unavailable locally, forcing substitutions that weakened practice change. Zero‑tillage machinery sometimes arrived after the optimal sowing window for mustard in India and maize in Nepal.

These gaps are being addressed by linking farmer groups with Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) for bulk ordering; connecting farmers to schemes such as the transformation of aspirational districts (TRFA) in India for subsidised access to varieties; preparing 2-3 acceptable substitutes as contingencies; and using WhatsApp for real‑time coordination and adaptation.

Limits of digital and AI-enabled advisory

WhatsApp-based diagnostics (e.g., diseased chicken images in Bangladesh) could not always replace physical examination and often ignored the availability of local inputs and women’s labour constraints. This is being addressed by using digital tools as decision support for extension staff, reserving field visits for serious cases. At the same time, WhatsApp handles routine queries and complements its digital reach with expert‑led group meetings in Bangladesh and India, providing prescriptive solutions.

Incentive misalignment among actors

Public veterinary departments had vaccination mandates but limited travel budgets; input dealers prioritised fast-moving products; farmer groups showed limited motivation for ongoing handholding.

This is being addressed by clarifying mutual benefits in partnerships, supporting transport for vaccination camps, and engaging senior officials in steering committees. Sustaining coordination after project funding ends remains a challenge, requiring viable business models for service providers.

Gender and social inclusion barriers

Women’s mobility constraints limited training attendance in Bangladesh; landless farmers showed risk aversion; social norms limited women’s voice in mixed-gender meetings.

These are addressed through gender-segregated FGDs; village-based trainings at suitable times; 34 women specifically trained in the Bangladesh poultry pathway; women’s SHGs used as entry points; gender-differentiated outcomes tracked in the MEL framework.

BENEFITS AND IMPACT

Rupantar’s integrated EAS approach significantly increased adoption across nine diversification pathways within 3–4 seasons in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. Farmers gained economically, with ZT mustard households in India earning up to INR 28,000, dairy farmers in Nepal nearly doubling or more than doubling milk yields, and Bangladeshi women using poultry as an emergency financial buffer. Household nutrition improved, as 93% of poultry farmers in Bangladesh and 84% of dairy farmers in Nepal reported better food consumption and dietary diversity. Knowledge of pathway principles moved from near‑zero to good or expert levels, and gender inclusion strengthened, especially in non‑plot pathways, where 100% of poultry farmers in Bangladesh and 84% of goat farmers in India were women. Circular farm integrations such as manure recycling, crop residues as feed, and home‑pressed oil further enhanced household resilience and income stability.

SUSTAINABILITY AND SCALING UP

All pathways yield positive economic returns, incentivising farmers to continue without sustained project support. ScAD‑based, community‑selected pathways ensure local relevance and ownership, with government departments, universities, NGOs, and cooperatives embedded in implementation to build institutional capacity. SAGUN Cooperative plans chilling vans and processing centres, while NGOs (RDRS and SSCOP) receive expansion requests, signalling post‑project momentum.

The ScAD process is replicable in similar EGP contexts where multi‑stakeholder coordination, a basic service‑provider ecosystem, and community‑facilitation capacity exist. Horizontal scaling is underway in neighbouring districts, with vertical scaling emerging as state/provincial governments adopt ScAD into public extension.

LESSONS LEARNED

• Train field staff to facilitate processes, not just surveys; strong situation analysis ensures context‑fit actions.
• Pre‑consult women, smallholders, and landless farmers to ensure their priorities are not overridden in mixed‑stakeholder settings.
• Map service providers and markets 3-6 months before the season; promote only practices with confirmed inputs and services.
• Treat women’s barriers as both logistical (timing, venue, transport) and social; group composition and facilitator sensitivity matter as much as the message.
• Build rapid mid‑season feedback loops for adaptive decisions, not end-of‑project evaluation.
•  Use visible demonstrations and field‑based learning to turn advice into trusted action.
• Apply participatory pathway design so farmers, government, and NGOs jointly decide what to scale.
• Offer multiple pathway options so landless, smallholders, and women have viable entry points.
• Avoid technology‑push without context, one‑size‑fits‑all designs, advice without services, tokenistic consultations, one‑season thinking, and counting only training numbers instead of system‑level change.

Acknowledgement
We thank ACIAR for financial support and all Rupantar partner organisations in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh for their active contributions. We also acknowledge the farmers for their time and active participation.

Bhuvana Narayanarao is a Consultant (Social Sciences) for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT). She can be reached at bhuvanaditya7@gmail.com

Ravi Nandi is an Agricultural Economist and Innovation System Scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), Bangladesh. He can be reached at r.nandi@cgiar.org