Extension Reforms in India: An Overview

In worldwide most of the rural population is invariably interrelated to the performance of the agrarian sector and to the sector's ability to cope with the tasks that result from growing population pressures, changing demand for food and agricultural products, resource scarcity, climate change and greater production uncertainty. The World Bank report 2007 emphasizes agricultural extension as an important development intervention for increasing the prospective of the agrarian sector. In these view Indian farm production systems, the reforms are shown to raise the role of agricultural extension services are aimed at many different strategic interventions. First, providing the significant awareness to meet the information needs of the farming community and to ensuring such information reaches to the farmers in a timely manner lies at the crux of the reforms in Indian extension reform efforts. Further, maintaining the effectiveness of the agricultural extension system as a whole and the enhancing the efficiency. The orientation of the extension structure in India is still majorly oriented on the production –led extension. But there is great need for an inclusive approach to sustainably development in the farming systems that goes beyond production led extension and considering the farmer’s problems, offered resources, the combination of farming system approach, involvement of extension agents/worker and farmers in the extension system and research etc. Therefore, these new reform measures are required yet to fully recognize in the vast array of knowledge and information sources.