Privatization of Extension and Cyber Extension

 Concept of Privatisation

Privatization of extension refers to services rendered in rural areas & allied aspects of extension personnel working in private agencies or organizations for which farmers are expected to pay a fee & it can be viewed as supplementary or alternative to public extension services. (Sarvanan & Shivalinge 1980)

❖ The process of funding and delivering the extension services by a private individual or the organization is called Private Extension

❖ Privatization is the act of reducing the role of government or increasing the role of the private sector in an activity or in the ownership of assets

❖ Services rendered in the area of agriculture and allied aspects by extension personnel working in private agencies or organizations for which farmers are expected to pay a fee (or free) and it can be viewed as supplementary or alternative to public extension servicesǁ.

1. Extension worker: Farmers ratio-1:1000

2. Inability to reach all farmers

3. Ineffective Extension services

4. No need for assessment

5. Women involvement is low

The primary goal of the Government is to maintain food security. India is in the process of privatizing its input system to improve farmer access to purchase inputs and to create a more efficient input supply system.

Weak points of Public Extension System in India

• India public extension system concentrated on rural community development objectives, rather than having a strong agriculture focus

• Policy issue

• Disappointing in the transfer of technologies

• Supply driven, Production-led, top-down extension system

• Extension systems are hierarchical and stereotype

• Extension worker: Farmers ratio-1:1000

• Inability to reach all farmers

• Ineffective Extension services

• No need for assessment

• Women involvement is less

Need for Privatization

1. Poor performance of the public system: The poor performance of the public sector has also resulted in fiscal imbalance.

2. Changing context and technology

3.Untrained extension workers

4. Experience shows that diversity is the only way to address changing conditions and various categories of users.

5. Fiscal crisis, the inability of the state to bridge a deficit between its expenditures and its tax revenues. Fiscal crises are characterized by a financial, economic, and technical dimension on the one hand and a political and social dimension on the other.

— The poor performance of the public sector is due to various reasons such as political interference,

— inefficiency and corruption of management,

— low labor efficiency,

— lack of professionalism,

— surplus staff, etc.

Approaches:

Sharecropping system

Village extension contract system

Service for vouchers

contract farming

Strengths of Private Extension System:-

1. More demand-driven rather than supply-driven.

2. High quality of services in terms of satisfying information needs.

3. Provides formal information mix and choices available to farmers.

4. Enhanced efficiency of staff

5. Assure continuous supply and quality agricultural products

6. More effective because farmers can select an adviser who is the best able to help.

Service Rendered by Private Extension Agencies

1. Information

2.Input supply

3.Infrastructure

4.Technical services

5.Marketing Services

6.Enterprises

7.Consultancy

Organisation Providing Private Extension Services

• Agricultural consultants

• Farmers association

• Input companies

• Nongovernment Organisations

• Mass media

Elements of Private Extension System

1. Objectives

2. Target group: Only those who can pay

More committed

Highly careful

Actively participating

3. Mandates:

Ø Technologies: location-specific, demand-driven, timely, profitable

Ø Input supply: Quality, timely and adequate

4. Extension personnel: highly motivated, highly professional,

accountable to farmers

5. Extension method: Advisory in nature through personal

communication; participatory approach; less use of group and mass

Cyber extension:

■ The cyber extension is an agricultural information exchange mechanism over cyberspace, the imaginary space behind the interconnected computer networks through telecommunication means

■ It utilizes the power of networks, computer communications, and interactive multimedia to facilitate information sharing mechanism

Elements of cyber extension

Ø E-mail

Ø On-Line Extension Information services

Ø Internet Interactive system

Ø FTP (File Transfer Protocol)- is a standard network protocol used for the transfer of computer files between a client and server on a computer network. FTP is built on a client-server model architecture using separate control and data connections between the client and the server.

Ø Gopher, Archie, Veronica

Ø Veronica was a search engine system for the Gopher protocol, released in November

1992 by Steven Foster and Fred Barrie at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Ø Archie—a search engine for finding FTP files

Ø Usenet newsgroups

Ø World wide web: The World Wide Web, also known as the WWW and the Web, is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by

Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), interlinked by hypertext links, and accessible via the Internet. English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989.

Potential Advantages of Cyber extension:-

■ Continuously available

■ Information-rich

■ Offer instant international reach

■ Cut steps from the traditional process

■ Receiver-oriented approach

■ Activism

■ Individualism

■ Message

■ Feedback

■ Save money, time, and effort

■ Multiplicity of purpose

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