The number and types of organizations providing extension services in India have shown an increase over the last two decades. The Department ofAgriculture (DoA) continues to dominate extension. The DoA has been facing a number of constraints and without a total restructuring, its ability to provide services demanded byfarmers is under serious doubt. The performance of private extension agents varies widely and their presence is more skewed towards well-endowed regions. A good number of farmers are willing and able to payfor quality services especially in the area ofplant protection and trainingprograms. With the changing nature ofIndian agriculture, the institutional diversity in provision of extension services would increase in comingyears. Public sector extension needs to make conscious efforts to learnfrom ongoing institutional experiments and should be restructured with the necessary skills and capacities to integrate information and expertise available in different organizations
Funding and Delivering Agricultural Extension in India
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