Definition

This Policy Instrument (PI) focuses on making extension and rural advisory services more effective, sustainable and responsive to the specific needs of different categories of producers enabling their access to agricultural inputs, resources, technology, knowledge and markets, while leveraging collective action, partnership, innovation, and farmer-to-farmer, participatory and bottom up approaches in parallel with capacity development for relevant actors, i.e. policy makers, researchers, extension worker, famers, private sector.

Rationale

Extension and rural advisory and support services (RAS) offer a first and essential entry point to producers as they strive to enhance productivity, profitability, cope with climate change, economic crises and other shocks. They represent an important lever for rural transformation. Yet, despite their fundamental role, the provision of RAS in their diversity is often fragmented, limited in time, underfunded and sometimes outdated, hence, unsustainable. The role of RAS can be revived by fostering/investing in collective and sustainable bottom-up advisory mechanisms and multi-stakeholders partnerships and collaborations, galvanized by the power of technological innovation.  

Key interventions

Provision of advisory services to strengthen producer organizations entails leveraging the role of farmer/community-based groups and associations, both formal and informal, as well as producer organizations, farmers associations and cooperatives, particularly those engaging youth, women and Indigenous Peoples. These organizations play a key role in the facilitation/provision of key resources, information, inputs and services needed by farmers and rural producers as they farm, process and market their produce. These span seeds, land and water, technology and mechanization, transportation, post-harvest and aggregation, marketing but also the much-needed advice in farm business and financial management and agripreneurship, thereby fostering negotiation skills and bargaining power for better market access. These collectives also offer a space where:

• Producers can exchange practices, experience and know-how, leveraging indigenous knowledge. Farmer-to-farmer approaches not only favour the sustainable development of capacities but also promote more sustainable and agroecological forms of farming that preserve biodiversity. When their governance is inclusive and democratic, when they are well rooted in the local context and well connected to other institutions, these forms of organization can favour sustainable transformation;
• Farmers’ voice is put at the center and where the exclusion, marginalization and poverty caused by discriminatory social and gender norms, as well as power dynamics, can be discussed questioned and challenged.

Many vulnerable people are contributing to the food system without their role and effort being recognized and adequately compensated for, such as, for instance, migrants, refugees, Internally Displaced People or Indigenous Peoples. Their status prevent them from accessing information knowledge and resources. Their inclusion in collective mechanisms both formal and informal may represent a way to raise their voice, contribute to decision-making processes and have their role recognized by institutions, communities and the wider society, favoring inclusion pathways.

Collective action also refers to the work of networks and fora operating at the international, regional, national and local level. These collectives embrace different forms of organizations from public extension services – which play a key role in reaching out to vulnerable producers, to research organizations, academia, civil society, farmer organizations and the private sector. Their role, combined, is key for developing capacities, policy development, cross-pollinating knowledge and good practices, advocacy and resource mobilization.

By favouring exchange and dialogue with stakeholders at different levels, advisory solutions stemming from collective and participatory mechanisms enable the identification and co-creation of viable solutions to producers’ productivity and profitability challenges in a way that is respectful of people and the environment. Collective platforms also offer opportunities to discuss and promote the implementation of voluntary guidelines. Combining the power of collective action with that of innovation in its different forms can be transformational. ICT, digital solutions and artificial intelligence are now at the centre of the debate on rural advisory services. Indeed, digital solutions go a long way in favoring producers’ access to information, knowledge and markets and have the power to amplify the benefits of more traditional advisory approaches. For instance:

• Digital innovations in earth observation, satellite rainfall estimations and remote sensing can help in reaching millions of smallholder producers, many of whom were previously considered uninsurable;
• Digital technology applications for agricultural and food markets can promote financial inclusion as they allow financial institutions to enter rural markets without establishing a costly physical presence;
• E-commerce platforms may encourage youth and women to remain in or return to rural areas;
• Blockchain technology can build trust and promote transparency and thus increase the traceability of food throughout the value chain.

Yet, the contribution of digital solutions to rural transformation depends on their accessibility by all producers including the most vulnerable ones. It is, therefore, imperative that governments take action to increase the inclusiveness of digitalization and reduce the digital divide, through measures such as national digital agriculture strategies.