Principles and Techniques of Veterinary and AH Extension

NATIONAL GOALS AND DIFFERENT EXTENSION APPROACHES

• The extension programmes must address the national goals. Swanson (2008) outlined three important agricultural development goals at national level and the objectives of the extension and advisory system to accomplish the national goals. These National goals are
• National food security
• Improving rural livelihoods to reduce poverty and food insecurity and
• The sustainable use of natural resources within the country.
• To accomplish these goals the extension system (whether it is agriculture or livestock extension) needs to be focused on the below mentioned four objectives:
• Technology transfer, especially for the staple crops,
• Human capital development (especially the skills that poorly educated farm households need to increase farm income),
• Building Social capital development (or getting farmers organized into producer groups or other types of farm organizations to carry out specific activities ) and
• Educating farmers to utilize sustainable natural resource management practices.
• These national goals and extension objectives are as relevant to India as to any other developing nation. Today India can not boast of self sufficiency in staple foods and livestock products mainly due to monsoon failure, droughts followed by floods, shifting of staple crops to commercial crops, improper policies, turbulent markets, farmers losing interest in animal husbandry etc. Livestock including poultry and fisheries are also getting impacted due to these changes. Setting proper goals and appropriate objectives to realize these set goals is necessary to save the nation from poverty, malnutrition and disease. It is in this context the extension services need to be innovative in their concept, objectives and approaches.