Reforming India’s Pluralistic Extension System: Some Policy Issues

The agricultural sector in India has been successful in keeping pace with the rising food demand of a growing population. Rapid agricultural growth continues to be the key to poverty alleviation and overall economic development. The changing economic scenario in India and the need for appropriate agricultural technologies and agro-management practices to respond to food and nutritional security, poverty alleviation, diversifying market demands, export opportunities and environmental concerns is posing new challenges to technology dissemination systems. Public extension by itself can no longer respond to the multifarious demands of farming systems. There is need to reevaluate the capacity of agricultural extension to effectively address the contemporary and future needs of the farming community. Public funding for sustaining the vast extension infrastructure is also under considerable strain. Meanwhile in response to market demand, the existing public extension network is inexorably being complemented, supplemented and even replaced by private extension. As the nature and scope of agricultural extension undergoes fundamental changes, India looks for a whole new policy mix that nurtures the pluralistic extension system in India. The current study tries to analyse in-depth the various issues of pluralistic extension system in India and the policy reforms carried out to address them.