ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the organizational contexts can promote or inhibit agricultural extension, using the public sector services of East Africa. The term ‘agency/farmer interface’ is used to highlight the boundary between external agencies and local client systems, often taking the form of mutual contacts between field staff and local farmers. The circumstances which encourage an effective and continuing transfer are the focus of this analysis. The primary assumption is that those on either side of this interchange are likely to perceive certain benefits and costs associated with their mutual involvement in a common extension program. African experience suggests that once an extension system becomes enmired in a negative feedback spiral of this kind, with deteriorating services accelerating a production decline, conventional reform measures become ineffective. Consider the dilemma of a frontline extension worker ordered to transmit to farmers recommendations which ignore their own priority concerns.
