ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that men as well as women agricultural researchers and extensionists have to become involved and to target farmers of both genders. It considers the gender-related characteristics of extension services and how these characteristics affect reaching a variety of farmers, especially women. The chapter deals with a recommendation that the mandate of male extensionists can be extended legitimately to include female farmers. Researchers tend to use the extension and research services as they already exist in the host country. This increases the difficulty in including women farmers in Farming Systems Research and Extension (FSR/E) because it is usually male extension personnel who work with researchers to locate, interview, select trial cooperators, and target disseminators. A case study from Malawi examines the problem of relying on male extensionists in FSR/E and reports on some methods that were undertaken to change extension and FSR/E procedures to reach female as well as male farmers.
