Fundamentals of Extension Education

Krishi Vigyan Kendra(KVK)

• Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) is an innovative science based institution which undertakes vocational training of farmers, farm women and rural youths; conducts on farm research for technology refinement and front line demonstrations to promptly demonstrate the latest agricultural technologies to the farmers as well as the extension workers. The KVK functions on the principles of collaborative participation of scientists, subject matter experts, extension workers and farmers.
• Imparting learning through “work experience” to those who are engaged in farming is the main purpose of KVKs. The syllabus and programme of each KVK is tailored to the felt needs of the farmers, resources and potential for agricultural growth in a particular area. “Teaching by doing” and “learning by doing” are the main methods of imparting skill training. The first KVK was established in 1974 in Pondicherry under Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU).
• Recently there has been a shift in the approach and objectives of the KVK. While initially the emphasis was mainly on ‘human resource development through training the farmers and extension workers, now the KVKs also participate in the process of agri-technology development and refinement. Emphasis is also on employment generation to bring about equality of opportunities for socio-economically deprived class of farmers and traditionally back-ward areas in the country including dry land areas.
• In the present context of agricultural development where participation of farmers and extension agencies has become imperative in the technology generation process, the mandate of the KVKs has been widened to encompass on farm research and frontline demonstrations. The detailed mandates are as follows.

  1. Collaborate with the subject matter specialists of the state Agricultural universities/Scientists of the regional research station, NAEP and the state extension personnel in “on farm testing”, refining and documenting technologies for developing region-specific sustainable land use systems.
  2. Organize training to update the extension personnel within the area of operation with emerging advances in agricultural research on regular basis.
  3. Organize long term vocational training courses in agriculture and allied vocations for the rural youths with emphasis on “learning by doing” for generating self employment through institutional financing.
  4. Organize front-line demonstration in various crops to generate production data and feedback information.
• The KVK is a fully fledged institution consisting of its own buildings – demonstration farm and units, equipments, vehicles etc. The building facilities include main KVK building, farmers hostel, staff quarters and demonstration units. The demonstration farm is normally laid down on the 20 hectares farm land.
• Based on the mandates, the following activities are performed.

  1. On-farm research
  2. In service training
  3. Vocational training of farmers, farm women, rural youths etc.
  4. Front line demonstration and other extension activities.

  (1) On-Farm Research (OFR)
• On farm research is an adaptive research which is conducted on farmers fields by the farmers with the support from scientists/subject-matter specialists. It is conducted with a farming systems perspective.
• The main objective of OFR is to identify existing inputs of practices that might help solve major problems of many farmers in a defined study area. Farming system perspective implies “ seeing things from the farmers viewpoints”.

(2) In service training
• The KVKs has been given the responsibility of conducting in service training of grass route level extension workers like VEWs and others working in Government and non Government development organizations.
• This training programmes are normally arranged in collaboration with the state department of agriculture and state agricultural university. The importance of such training programmes has increased since the introduction of a Panchayat Raj System in the country.

(3) Vocational training of farmers
• This had been the major mandate of the KVKs in the past and will continue to be so in future as well. The objective is to organize long term vocation based and skill oriented training for farmers, farm women, rural youths and school drop-outs so that they could adopt new methods of farming and increase farm income thus, the emphasis is not on crops but on vocations.
• The potential trainees are selected by the KVK staff in consultation with the district development departments.

(4) Front line demonstrations (FLD) and other extensional activities
• The KVKs organize front line demonstrations which aim at demonstrating the production the potentialities of newly released and pre-released production technologies of cereals, pulses and oil seeds and farmers fields.
• These are called frontline demonstrations because the technologies are demonstrated for the first time before being fed into the main extension system. The KVKs have also been given the responsibility of conducting at least some good integrated farming system demonstration which could serve as model for extension agencies.

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