EXTENSION AND SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN AFRICA

Background to the research enquiry

The Office of the President is devising a suite of second economy strategies to complement a
sweeping government-led anti-poverty strategy. One of the opportunities that have been identified is
the agricultural sector, in particular the fostering of a larger number of smallholder agriculturalists.
Land reform provides opportunities to address one of the constraints on smallholder production –
access to productive land – but to date has not done so, in part because of inappropriate planning
and delivery processes and inadequate post-settlement support.
The purpose of the research and strategy development project led by the Programme for Land and
Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) in co-operation with several other institutions is to help identify the key
elements of an implementable programme to support the smallholder sector. The research
component focuses on identifying successful South African smallholders active in different settings,
and examines the personal, contextual and institutional factors that contribute to their success.
Improving support to smallholders
Clearly for support measures to be effectively targeted there needs to be some consensus on how to
characterise smallholder agricultural producers and identify the different settings in which they can
be found.
There are no immediate definitions in common usage in South Africa. Elsewhere in the region
definitions relate to the amount of land cultivated by the farmer. In Zambia small holder farmers are
defined as those marginal and sub marginal farm households that own or/and cultivate less than 2.0
hectare of land. (Chipokolo, 2006). However in South Africa smallholders can be found in urban and
peri-urban settings, on municipal commonage and in rural areas including the former homelands.
Over the years there have been a number of initiatives, many co-oercive, few genuinely supportive to
strengthen the smallholder sector. The design of support measures tends to veer between two
extremes:
• The temptation to identify the single constraint that must be addressed in order for
smallholders  to  flourish  and  thrive,  e.g.  land  or  credit,  which  result  in  a  search  for  ‘silver
bullet’ policy interventions.
• The supposition that any programme aiming to support smallholders must be ‘holistic’, by
which is usually meant that it must provide all types of support simultaneously on the
premise that the absence of any one of them will lead to the programme’s failure.
(Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, 2008)
Historically there was often an implicit supposition that support for smallholder agriculturalists
would enable them to derive their core livelihood from agricultural production and make the
transition to fulltime farming. However in most cases household agricultural activities represent just
one, (often small) element within a more diversified set of household livelihood strategies – an
3element which as it increases in scale may carry a correspondingly higher level of economic and
social risk for the smallholder.
The design of an implementable programme to  support smallholder agriculture has to steer
between analysis that prioritises single constraints which usually results in interventions that are
inadequate, and the development of ambitious integrated and holistic  solutions which may be
unaffordable or which can serve very few people. (Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, 2008)
Hence our focus is on identifying core factors,  which if addressed can create a more enabling
environment for more productive and innovative  smallholder agriculture located within a broader
context of improved household livelihood security and reduced vulnerability and risk.
Key questions
Clearly the overarching research question must address the contribution that the support of
smallholder agriculture can make to poverty reduction.  Although there is a widespread call for
increasing investment in small holder agriculture as a “pathway out of poverty” there is debate as to
how effective this will be.
A 2006 OECD review argued that “it is clear that the potential of agriculture and agricultural (land)
reform itself to reduce poverty is limited. The long-term solution to poverty reduction requires
involving a greater part of the rural poor in economic activities generating sufficient income. The
main potential to reduce rural poverty and inequity lies in the development of overall frameworks
providing social security, education and training as well as health care, and in developing adequate
infrastructures in rural areas”(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006)
However DFID has argued that at the macro-economic level, growth in agriculture has been
consistently shown to be more beneficial to the poor than growth in other sectors. There is an
important caveat here that increased productivity (as opposed to increased production) is the key to
greater impact on poverty. “Broad-based growth and diversification do not happen when agricultural
output increases simply by using additional land or labour. Instead, greater value must be added to
the land and labour used, i.e. agricultural productivity increases.” (DFID, 2004)
In the African context it has been asserted that “each 1% increase in agricultural productivity in
Africa reduces poverty by 0.6%.  Thus, a smallholder-led growth strategy has the potential to make a
very significant impact on food security and poverty reduction.” (Forum for Agricultural Research in
Africa, 2007) This has been echoed in South Africa where it has been argued that there is “a strong
case for agriculture’s role in reducing poverty…Evidence from other countries shows that, with the
necessary support, smallholder agriculture can contribute significantly to poverty alleviation by
raising agricultural productivity and rural incomes.”. (Machethe, 2004)
Focusing on extension
This brief review of the literature sets out to:
• understand the changing role of extension in supporting smallholder agriculturalists and
provide a brief history of extension and farmer support;
• examine the changing approaches to extension and the development of new extension
frameworks in South Africa and internationally;
4• highlight the current status quo in relation to the training and orientation of extension staff;
For the purposes of this brief review we will be asking:
• How does the history of extension delivery in South Africa shape current approaches to the
current provision of extension support?
• How have extension services been affected by the deregulation of agriculture?
• How effective has extension been to date in supporting land reform beneficiaries, promoting
urban agriculture and providing services in the former homeland areas?
• What can the international and southern African experience tell us about the most
appropriate approaches to providing extension support?
• What should be the role of extension support in growing an increasing number of successful
smallholder agriculturalists and people who engage in agricultural activities as part of their
livelihood strategies?
A short history of extension and farmer support in South
Africa
South African has long been characterised as having two agricultures – which is as we discuss
below is a somewhat problematic conceptualisation. The roots of the “two agricultures” thesis
originates in the instruments used by the South African State to support white commercial farmers
on the one hand and measures to regulate agricultural production and land-use management in the
former reserves and homeland areas on the other.
Historical measures to strengthen the white commercial farming
sector
A range of measures benefited some 55,000 white commercial farmers until they started to be
phased out in the late 1980s ahead of the deregulation of the agricultural sector. These included:
• Monopoly powers, direct controls over imports and exports, and guaranteed prices and
guaranteed markets via the Marketing Acts of 1937 and 1968.
• The 1939 Agricultural Co-operatives Act
• A comprehensive system of support, which was implemented largely by the Department of
Agriculture and comprised research and extension, subsidies for a wide range of functions
such as soil conservation works, boreholes, housing for farm workers, farm schools, fencing,
disaster assistance etc.
• The provision of infrastructure such as electricity, roads, railways, telecommunications and
irrigation water through other state departments and agencies (Eskom, Roads Authorities,
Spoornet, Telkom, Department of Water Affairs, and Irrigation Boards and Conservation
Boards).
• Financial assistance through the Agricultural Credit Board and the Land Bank, with credit
provided at subsidised interest rates and on preferential terms to farmers who could not
access credit from the commercial banks.
(Sustainable Development Consortium, 2007)
Given this favourable environment agricultural production in South Africa exceeded both population
increase and consumption requirements (although large numbers of black South Africans remained
too poor to buy adequate food for their families). Between 1980 – 1989 South Africa became self
sufficient in all major agricultural commodities. (Singini & van Rooyen, 1995)
5Historical measures to regulate production and land use in the
Reserves and the homelands
A variety of measures were promulgated most of which served to undermine rural production and
land based livelihoods.
In 1929 the Union government established a Native Agricultural and Lands Branch within the
Department of Native Affairs. This had a tiny budget and focused on soil conservation and the
regulation of livestock numbers.
• In 1936 Land Act created the South African Native Trust which had responsibility for
administering African reserve areas. The SANT imposed systems of control over livestock,
introduced the division of arable and grazing land and enforced residential planning and soil
conservation measures. However most of the state agricultural branch's “attention was
directed to the newly acquired white farmlands, with the hope that these tracts could be
preserved until resources for development became available”.(Butler, Rotberg, & Adams,
1978)
• In 1939 Proclamation 31 enabled officials to declare a ‘betterment area’ and empowered
them to count and cull livestock where they saw fit.
• 1945 Department of Native Affairs published A New Era for Reclamation which set out the
vision for betterment land use planning and villagisation
• In 1950 the Tomlinson Commission set out to  “conduct an exhaustive enquiry into and
report on a comprehensive scheme for the rehabilitation of Native areas”. It recommended
the abolition of communal tenure and allocation of land together with a comprehensive
agricultural support programme to enable the creation of a class of ‘contented Bantu
farmers’ able to earn an income of 120 pounds a year. At the same time the Commission
recorded that the Reserves could only support 51% of the population recorded in the 1951
census. It proposed culling 55% of the livestock. The Commission calculated that a family
would require 52.5 morgen of land to make a gross annual income of 70 pounds.
• The nationalist government rejected Tomlinson Commission recommendations for
depopulating the reserves and investing in  agricultural development. They opted for
increased control measures such as betterment planning while rapidly swelling the already
overcrowded homelands with people displaced through forced removals. (de Satge, 1988)
The homeland era
The homeland era which commenced with Transkei’s ‘independence’ in 1976 opened the way for
homeland extension services and the development of agricultural development parastatals like
TRACOR, AGRIVEN and Agriwane.
Three agencies were involved in setting and implementing agricultural policy in the homelands:
homeland government departments, the advisory services branch of the Department of Bantu
Administration and Development (BAD), and the Bantu Investment Corporation (BIC). Each of these
had a different perspective. Homeland governments set out to provide basic extension services –
BAD focused on the implementation of betterment while BIC favoured large scale projects. (Butler
et al., 1978).
An assessment of extension services in the run up to homeland era noted that "while 90,000 rich,
educated white farmers have 3,000 extension officers (plus enormous injections of easy credit,
marketing facilities, and guaranteed prices) 600,000 black farmers have less than 1,000 extension
6officers and these hopelessly overstretched men (and their small budgets) have been concentrated
on the irrigation schemes." (Lipton, 1972)
The parastatal homeland development approach during the 1970s and early 1980’s revolved around
centrally managed showcase capital intensive projects. Smallholders or waged employees were
settled on these schemes which provided management, inputs, tillage and marketing services.
However these schemes largely failed to create independent farmers and many became hugely
expensive and inefficient.
The Development Bank of Southern Africa which was established in 1983 introduced the Farmer
Support Programme (FSP) as an alternative to the large capital intensive schemes. The FSP focused
on small farmers in the homeland areas. The DBSA defined a farmer as anyone who used resources
part time or full time to produce agricultural goods. The programme set out to integrate the
promotion of agricultural activities with other non farm related rural development activities.
However the overall FSP development objective was the “promotion of structural change away from
subsistent agricultural production to commercial production by providing comprehensive
agricultural support services and incentives to existing farmers.” (Van Rooyen, 1995). After a mid
term evaluation this objective was redefined in 1989 to focus on providing farmer access to support
services over a wide base. The FSP ran between 1987 and 1993.  It focused on the supply of:
• inputs and capital to farmers;
• mechanisation services;
• marketing services;
• extension services, demonstration and research;
• training.
 The programme estimated that it reached 55,000 people through 35 FSPs before it was overtaken by
the demise of the homelands and their reintegration into the nine provinces emerging from the new
democratic dispensation in 1994.
A review of extension, training and research services provided as part of the FSP (Hayward & Botha,
1995) identified a wide range of problems:
• Provision of poor quality extension support in most instances. The low effectiveness of
services was not due to lack of field officers but rather to the low quality of their formal
education and the lack of appropriate in service training to meet on the job support needs
• No meaningful contact between extension and research given that most research capability
remained targeted at the commercial sector
• Extension methods were outdated and had not adapted to changing international extension
approaches
• Farmers were encouraged to use inputs at too high a level against their actual achievement
pushing many into debt
• Some 40 farmer training centres had been constructed in the former homelands while
occupancy rates were 15 – 20%
• Lack of co-ordination between Departments of Agriculture and Agricultural Corporations
In the evaluation of the FSP in 1993 it was noted that FSP strategy in the future might be determined
by the demands of a land reform programme. However in the subsequent reorientation of the
7DBSA’s priorities it appears to have largely abandoned farmer support in favour of building the
capacity of local government.
The transition
For a brief period there was a focus on the development of a rural development strategy under the
Government of National Unity located within DLA and the RDP office. The Rural Development
Strategy proposed that:
 “The main strategy is to create a national network of local service centres (LSCs) where a variety of
services can be accessed. The LSCs in rural areas will receive subsidisation, and some activities in
all LSCs may be subsidised to assist with targeting. Each will have a local control structure, and will
need to prove accountability and transparency to maintain its accreditation. The LSCs will mostly
assist entrepreneurs in obtaining access to hard skills training, for which they must pay, and will
provide on-site 'hand-holding' to developing businesses for sustained periods.” It advocated
broadening access to agriculture through the following measures:
• Facilitation of farmer associations amongst previously disadvantaged farmers, and
promotion of links to other voluntary associations such as cooperatives and input supply
companies;
• Addressing the problems of the agricultural colleges, including reorientation of teaching
methods and curriculum development;
• 'Nurturing the land': development of expertise, support and extension methodology around
conservation;
• Reorientation training for agricultural training staff, including the development of new
management systems, and reorientation of agricultural research;
• Development of a state guarantee scheme for agricultural finance, in place of direct state
credit for farmers
• Development of long term human resource development programme;
• Development of simple agricultural materials, including a workbook, concepts, glossary,
and index of availability of a wide range of services;
• Development of a Farmer Training Programme, based on short flexible courses;
• A market awareness drive;
• Development of a master plan for technology development;
• Financial assistance pilot projects (Government of South Africa, 1995)
However the Rural Development Strategy never really progressed beyond a think piece and it was
largely eclipsed when the RDP office was subsequently closed in March 1996.
For much of the 1990’s the provision of farmer support services was largely overtaken by the new
institutional priorities of merging all the different homeland departments of agriculture with the
agriculture and extension services which had supported white commercial farmers. Most of the new
state’s energy was expended in establishing a new look National Department and nine new
provincial departments.  
In this process much of the emphasis was understandably on right sizing and restructuring. Khanya
has documented the transition process in the Free State Department of Agriculture and a reading
8ten years after the events is a reminder of just how complicated and contested a process this would
be. (Khanya, 1998)
The newly created Free State Provincial Department of Agriculture started with 2200 posts it
inherited from earlier structures. Around 1800 of these posts were filled. After amalgamation and the
transfer of some posts to other departments, an organisation with 1 775 posts was established. A
‘right-sizing plan’ from September 1996 approved a structure with 1 281 posts for the Department.
However DPSA observed that this was still too many and that the numbers would need to fall to
around 700. At the same time there were serious shortages reported with respect to management
and technical staff together with an inherited complement of some 500 supernumerary staff for
which there was no budget.
One of the results of the transition process was that farmer support now became the preserve of the
National and provincial Departments of Agriculture.
New agricultural policy
In the 1995 White Paper on Agriculture defined  a farmer, irrespective of his/her race, gender or
scale of production, as a land user who engages productively in agriculture, either on a full-time or
on part-time basis and regardless of whether agriculture forms the principal source of income.
It critiqued the conventional transfer of technology approach to extension and argued for a holistic
system. In the conventional transfer of technology systems the extension worker passes on
scientific information to the farmer. This approach has the limitation that the imparted information
may not be relevant to the farmers' conditions, or may only partially address farmers' needs. In a
holistic system, researchers, extension workers and farmers are partners seeking solutions to
problems facing farmers. This envisaged that “researchers would spend more time in the farmers'
field, and liaise with farmers far more often than in the conventional model” and acknowledge that
that “farmers already have useful knowledge, especially of their own conditions and constraints.” It
also called for recognition of the “greater vulnerability of resource-poor farmers to risk.”
The White Paper called for a significant, rapid reorientation of research from commercial
agriculture, to a new focus on “basic research in the context of resource-poor farmers”. (Department
of Agriculture, 1995)
It noted that “previously, the Government had two parallel extension services—one for commercial
agriculture and another in the self-governing territories. Extension and training have not really been
effective in the self-governing territories for a number of reasons, including an attempt to model
extension services on the system used in commercial farming, and inadequate training and support
for extension officers.” (Ibid)
It called for an integrated extension service and a new model of participatory extension, in which the
extension worker is trained to act as a facilitator to replace the present transfer-of-technology model.
It argued that “a well-integrated retraining and reorientation programme needs to be formulated if
the capacity of small-scale farming is to be enhanced through appropriate support services.” (Ibid)
9The white paper highlighted the need for gendered policy and extension services and the need for
food security amongst South Africa’s rapidly urbanising population.
Rethinking the two agricultures thesis
Given South Africa’s history it is not surprising that a dominant narrative emerged which proposes
that there are ‘two agricultures’ in South Africa. However this narrative homogenises a much more
complex reality as it groups large scale capital and management intensive commercial agriculture
and contrasts it with low input smallholder and subsistence systems.  We argue that this rendering
has lost much of its explanatory power as it presents the extremes at either end of a production
continuum, but overlooks the diversity of the agricultural systems, subsectors and scales of
production which lie between. It also fails to take into account upstream input, supply and service
opportunities and downstream processing and value adding opportunities associated with
agriculture.
Over the last 20 years, there has been accelerating deregulation and liberalisation of the agricultural
sector. In 2002 StatsSA reported that there were 45 818 active commercial farming units in South
Africa which reflected a decrease of 12 162 farming units since the 1993 census. Distribution of
income is highly skewed between these units. Currently 20% percent of commercial farms produce
80% of the total value of production. Of the total of 45 818 farming units only 2 330 had an annual
income of more than R4 million, while 23 428 had an annual income of less than R300 000.  Within
the 2330 high earning units there are 8 agribusiness companies with a turnover of more than a
billion rand a year.(Hall, 2007)
Overall the sector has undergone rapid restructuring. Between 1988 and 1998 employment on farms
declined by 20% - a loss of 140,000 regular jobs.(Simbi & Aliber, 2000) During this period it has been
argued that the shedding of permanent workers was “in large measure being driven by ‘noneconomic considerations.’ Retrenchments and evictions were driven more by concerns in the
agricultural sector about land reform and impacts of future legislation”.(Simbi & Aliber, 2000: 4)
However subsequently it appears that market conditions and a mounting cost/price squeeze have
contributed to further job shedding. Changes in land use from agriculture to game farming and
private reserves have also contributed to job shedding while overall casualisation of the labour force
has increased from 33% - 49% between 1996 – 2002. The number of paid workers employed by the
formal agricultural sector decreased by 152 445 (13.9 percent) between 1993 (1 093 265) and 2002
(940 820). The commercial agricultural sector paid R6 216 million in salaries and wages for the year
to February 2002. This represents 11.7 percent of the gross farming income generated by the
agricultural sector in that financial year, and 13.8 percent of total expenditure for the same period.
(Statistics South Africa, 2005)
However it is important to note that these trends are not uniform throughout the sector. For example
wine industry has been transformed from a domestically focused sector into a rapidly expanding
export industry.  While the rest of the agricultural sector has shed large numbers of jobs,
employment in the wine industry has stayed largely constant and has even expanded. (Tregurtha,
2005) However consistent with trends across the sector the nature of employment has changed with
the increasing use of labour bureau's and the increasing casualisation of labour.  
10The value of policy transfers to South African agricultural producers, as measured by the OECD
Producer Support Estimate (PSE), equalled 5% of gross farm receipts on average in 2000–03
compared to 31% in the European Union.(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development, 2006) In 2001 state spending on agriculture amounted to 2.5 billion – a decline of 45%
from 1998.(Vink & Kirsten, 2003)
While in South Africa government support for agriculture has been substantially reduced, farmers in
the European Union and the United States have benefited from increased state support. There has
been a 15% rise in agricultural subsidies to producers in the developed world between the late 1980s
and 2004, while South Africa's general economic tariffs were reduced from 28% to 7.1%. (Ambert &
Hornby, 2006)The average import tariff level was lowered by one-third between 1994 and
1999.(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006)
In 2005, the Chairman of the South African Agricultural Machinery Association noted that South
Africa was able to impose a 72% import tariff on wheat and 50% on maize in terms of prevailing
World Trade Organisation (WTO) tariff and trade agreements. However South African tariffs for
these crops were pitched at 2% and 13% respectively.(South African Agricultural Machinery
Association, 2005)
High input farming systems, rapidly escalating fuel, fertiliser and input prices, exacerbated by
dramatically reduced state support for agriculture have combined to force out many smaller
producers and narrow the margins for those who remain outside the 20% top set.
These factors also make life very difficult for new entrants to agriculture and land reform
beneficiaries, let alone those who remain largely invisible in small holder and survivalist sectors
which are found “in a wide range of locations, including “deep rural” areas of the former homelands,
in townships and cities, and on commercial farms, and consists mainly of production of staple foods
for household consumption. Relatively few products find their way into local or other markets.
Production may take place in gardens, demarcated fields or on open rangelands. It is highly
differentiated by race, class and gender, with large numbers of very poor black women producing
purely for household consumption and a small “élite”, mainly men, producing on a much greater
scale. Many smallholders would not consider themselves to be “farmers” in the conventional sense.
Few records of production and trade are kept by either producers or external agencies, and the value
and volume of smallholder production that appears in the literature is probably only a fraction of the
actual output”.(Cousins & Lahiff, 2005)
The need for a new narrative
With the deregulation of agriculture, the complexity of the South African agricultural economy and
the insertion of a land reform programme there is a need for a new narrative which engages more
effectively with the new social, economic and political landscape as well as the mounting ecological
challenges facing the different domains within the agricultural sector.
We prefer the concept of a continuum which captures this diversity and which provides the focus for
heterogeneous interventions which also capture potential for innovation. Discussions on the future
of agriculture increasingly focus on an ‘innovation continuum’ or an ‘agri-innovation chain’ which
examines the full range of products and services in the agriculture and food process ranging from
11the development of inputs for production, flowing through all aspects of production, and on to
processing and marketing to consumption.(Agriculture & Agrifood Canada, 2008; World Bank, 2006)
In between the top end and the micro occasional producers at the other end of the agricultural
continuum lies a complex mix of agricultural activity which includes industrial dairy, poultry and
feed lots, plantation agriculture, family owned mixed farms, extensive livestock production,
participants in outgrower schemes of different kinds, small-scale producers in the growing organic
sector etc. Land reform beneficiaries are to be found across this continuum while those producers
which operate in the margins in the former homelands and within the townships and informal
settlements on the rapidly expanding urban areas remain largely excluded from agricultural support
other than through standardised packages intended to enhance household food security.
Training extension staff
One of the components of the RDP was the Broadening Access to Agriculture Thrust (BATAT)
which argued for called for the strengthening of both the curriculum and standard of the available
training in agriculture and the opening up of agricultural training and opportunities for all. The
actual process of developing the agriculture education and training (AET) strategy started in 2002.
The National Education and Training Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (Department
of Agriculture, 2005a) highlights the multiple and serious challenges which must be overcome
before there is a well trained cadre of extension staff in South Africa.
In 2005 the national corps of public extension staff was approximately 2800. The ratio of extension
staff to commercial and subsistence farmers was estimated as follows:
Commercial farmers: 1: 21
Subsistence farmers: 1: 857
Combined: 1: 878
The strategy observed that these ratios are not particularly high by global standards and that it was
not the numbers of extension staff which was the critical factor but rather their capacity to deliver.
The report also highlighted other factors impacting on the effectiveness of extension services
including:
• Distance between farmers
• Geographic areas covered by extension workers
• Client literacy
• Level of practical functioning of local farmer groups and associations
With respect to the recruitment of young people for careers in agriculture the strategy noted that
agriculture has a negative image as a career choice in the eyes of the youth. It is seen as the "work"
of the poor and the elderly and not as something that could be profitable. The strategy noted that
Agriculture has been removed from the curriculum at primary school level and that where
agriculture is offered at secondary school level (NQF levels 2-4) it delivers poorly.
High schools offering agriculture are often poorly equipped and lack qualified teachers. “Failure
rates are high, and there is often a punitive association with studying agriculture in the previously
disadvantaged areas of the country.” Formal agricultural training and education is very poorly
12controlled, both in terms of curriculum content and qualifications of educators, while the informal is
to a large extent untested in terms of quality. Unsurprisingly a large number of learners who have
diplomas and degrees in agriculture are, for a variety of reasons, unable to find jobs.
Due to low student numbers and other factors, some Colleges of Agriculture are shifting their focus
from educating Extension Practitioners to training farmers.
In 2005 there were some eleven (11) Colleges of Agriculture, six (6) Universities of Technology and
nine (9) universities offering various tertiary AET programmes that were nationally accredited.
Secondary AET is provided by approximately 1500 secondary schools.
Overall much agricultural education and training focuses largely on primary production rather than
focusing on farming as a business. The strategy highlighted the crucial need for general agricultural
economic skills, as well as those related to agricultural business, farm planning, farm management,
enterprise management, marketing, finance, credit and risk management, and human resources
management.
The strategy argues for the concept of agricultural extension to be expanded to provide agricultural
extension workers with capacity and the skills to assist communities to deal with the effects of rural
change, the impact of HIV/AIDS on the rural economic base, and the growing vulnerability of
household livelihood systems.
The strategy proposed the creation of a National Agricultural Education and Training Forum as the
initial implementation agent. This was launched on 20
th
 November 2006 by the Minister of
Agriculture. In 2007 provincial forums were launched in certain provinces including the Western
Cape and Eastern Cape. However there is likely to be a long lead time before this initiative gets
results.
However a number of initiatives are under way in different provinces often with foreign donor
support. In the Eastern Cape farmer support centres are planed which will utilise farmer to farmer
extension methods. The Cape Agricultural Programme on Rural Innovations (CAPRI) Programme
funded by the Dutch Government which has trained Extension Officers on Social facilitation Skills.
Assessing extension effectiveness
In the period post 1994 the Department of Agriculture was restructured and new provincial
Departments of Agriculture were established. Some commentators have argued that “these
provincial departments display many of the weaknesses of the former homeland Departments in
their inability to maintain support services to farmers,” with the result that most commercial farmers
have switched to privately provided services. (Vink & Kirsten, 2003)
It seems that there remain fundamental questions about the appropriate role of extension support.
Many extension officers appear to have become project managers “and are spending almost 90% of
the time, planning, developing business plans, collecting quotations, receiving equipment, writing
status reports, and expenditure reports just to name a few. The question that must be asked, “is this
extension’s role?” (Last, 2006). Last also sounds a warning about the inflexibility of project designs
13and the fact that project budgets and enterprise sophistication are often mismatched with
participant’s management and technical capacities.
At the same time new departments lack adequate extension and support services available to assist
new farmers.  This remains a current problem which was recently acknowledged by the Minister of
Agriculture and Land Affairs. She noted that a benchmarked extension profiling study undertaken
by ITCA …exposed that South Africa has approximately one-third of the required number of
extension officers to meet its development targets and that 80% of the current extension staff are not
adequately trained.
Developing an appropriate extension approach
According to the University of Pretoria who were commissioned by the Department of Agriculture to
develop an appropriate approach to extension 63% of farmers judged that their extension worker had
no advice of value to offer while 37% percent conceded that they sometimes have information of
some value. (Duvel, 2003)
The report recommended that there needed to be dedicated support provided to extension staff
which should include the establishment of an Extension Knowledge Information and Research
Centre which should be out-sourced to or performed in partnership with existing institutes. It
highlighted that “a major problem in the Department of Agriculture is the frequent restructuring,
usually with every change in leadership or senior management.  This is invariably associated with
high costs, delay and interruption of delivery programmes and usually represents mere ad hoc
reforms rather than the pursuit of measured, comprehensive and long-term restructuring”. (Duvel,
2003: 11)
The report noted that given the low qualification and competence of extension workers, an extensive
and structured support programme should be developed and implemented (Duvel, 2003:21) The
report also recommended that a national M & E Program should be regarded as “non-negotiable and
receive the highest priority”. (Ibid)
The report recommended a Participatory Programmed Extension Approach (PPEA) for South Africa
consisting of five linked programmes:
• extension planning and projects,
• extension linkage and coordination,
• knowledge and support,
• education and training,
• monitoring and evaluation
Norms and standards for agricultural extension and advisory
services
The norms and standards contain two definitions one of Advisory Services and the other of
Extension:
• Advisory services assume an actively problem-solving farmer who seeks advice from outside
when s/he and the immediate colleagues cannot solve a problem or when outside sources
14seem to offer useful ideas. The extension advisor does not visit the farmer to promote one or
a few component technologies, but on request.
• Extension is a knowledge and information support function for people engaged in
agriculture, and has a broader role than just providing advice (advisory).
In 2005 the Department of Agriculture published norms and standards in a bid to:
• improve access to agriculture support services (information, finance, inputs, regulatory
services, technical expertise, markets, etc)
• endow farmers with skills and knowledge for ensuring sustainable resource management;
• facilitate their access to new technologies;
• enhance communication with farmers and farmer organizations, mentors and advisors.
(Department of Agriculture, 2005b)
The norms and standards document argues that there is no single extension model or approach
suited to all situations in South Africa. It notes that depending on the prevailing conditions
technology transfer, participatory approaches and needs based development can all be relevant.
The state of the extension service
A detailed report entitled “The state of extension and advisory service within the agricultural Public
Service: A Need for Recovery” (Department of Agriculture, 2008) provides a sober assessment of the
state of the nation’s extension services. This report flows from the Extension indaba held earlier in
the year. The section below summarises key information from the report.
The report notes that the “capacity of provinces to deliver quality extension services to farmers
varies and to some it is already suffocating”. Extension and advisory services personnel are
expected to work with a wide range of clients flowing from subsistence to large scale commercial.
Extension job differentiation
The table below highlights the different extension bands as they are currently conceptualised.
JOB TITLE  MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS  LEVEL OF EMPLOYMENT
Agricultural Community
Officer
Standard 10 + in service training in
agricultural studies
NGO and Local Government
Agricultural Development
Officer
Standard 12- + 3 or more years of
post matric agricultural diploma
Social Development/Health/Local
government
Agricultural Advisors  B.Tech/Bachelors/Hons in
Agriculture
Provincial
Subject Matter Specialist  BSc (Hons) degree in Agriculture  Provincial and National
Extension staff employed per province
The report provides breakdown of employed extension personnel as provided by provinces as at
January 2007.
15Number of Employed Extension Officials N= 2155
PROVINCE
TOTAL
No.  %
Eastern cape  623  28
Free State  40  3
Gauteng  29  1
KwaZulu Natal  360  16
Limpopo  666  30
Mpumalanga  189  9
Northern Cape  23  1
North West  137  6
Western Cape  25  5
TOTAL  2155  100
The largest numbers of extension officials are from Limpopo Province which constitutes 30% of the
total followed by Eastern Cape Province at 28% and KwaZulu Natal at 16%. Gauteng Province and
Northern Cape Province have the smallest number of appointed extension personnel currently
standing at less that 2% of the total pool.
Qualification assessment
Only 427 out of 2155 (20%) have degree or higher qualification. About 1728 out 2155 (80%) of the
extension personnel have a diploma qualification. Overall 8 out of 10 are insufficiently qualified to
operate as Agricultural Advisors or Subject Matter Experts.
Only Gauteng and Free State Provinces have a good percentage of officials with degree
qualifications and higher.  The Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal has the lowest percentage of
extension officials with degree qualifications and higher.
Gender and qualification
In 6 out of 9 provinces, female extension officials are more educated than their male counterparts. It
is only in Free State, Gauteng and Western Cape where male officials are more educated than their
female counterparts. The latter can be attributed to the trends in recruitment whereby females have
joined the service fairly late compared to their male counterparts.
In service training
According to the report very few extension officials have been exposed to formal skills programmes
that are crucial to the delivery of product and services to farmers. Only 204 out of 2155 (9%) had
completed training in communication, 238 out of 2155 (11%) had completed project management,
140 out of 2155 (6%) had completed computer training and 143 out of 2155 (7%) had completed
training related to people management and empowerment.
Less than 25% of extension staff were exposed to technical training programmes since joining the
public service.
16Extension demographics
The table below indicates the racial profile of the extension service.
PROVINCES  RACIAL PROFILE
Africans  Coloureds  Indians  Whites  Total
No  No  No  No
E. Cape  611  0  0  12  623
Free State  55  1  0  14  70
Gauteng  27  0  0  2  29
KZN  358  0  1  1  360
Limpopo  658  0  0  8  666
Mpumalanga  186  0  0  3  189
Northern Cape  7  9  0  7  23
North West  131  0  0  6  137
Western Cape  9  16  0  33  58
Total  2042  26  1  86  2155
In terms of gender, the majority of the officials are males (73%). Only KwaZulu Natal has a 50/50
gender representation followed by Mpumalanga with almost a 60/40 representation. In all other
provinces the situation requires immediate attention.
Projected extension: farmer ratios
The projected ratio of extension personnel to farmers based on extrapolated farmer populations
Province  Current No. of extension officials  Suggested number based on different ratios
1: 500  1: 250
EC  623  1344  2688
FS  70  52  103
GP  29  19  38
KZN  360  710  1419
LIM  666  1181  2361
MP  189  337  675
NC  23  26  52
NW  137  129  257
WC  58  61  123
TOTAL  2155  3559  7706
Currently the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga have the highest shortfall of
extension personnel given the number of communal farmers in these provinces as well as projects
emerging as the results of the land reform programme through CASP and other initiatives.
The extension recovery plan
In 2008 the Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs announced a joint Extension Recovery Plan
which is to extend over a number of years and for which funding has been approved by National
17Treasury for the MTEF period. (Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs, 2008:23). This recovery plan
is identified as an activity in most provincial budget allocations for agriculture. As yet we have not
been able to obtain details of the plan and what is entailed.
The strategic plan for the Department of Agriculture states that in the next 5 years, the DoA will roll
out an extension recovery plan, which will result in the skills upgrading of more than 1 000 extension
officers. This will be supported by a professional development programme, which will focus on
developing high-level skills for the benefit of the entire sector. These will be implemented within the
framework of the External Bursary Scheme and Entrepreneurship Programme. The recovery plan
will be launched through an extension indaba.
Extension support to land reform
The failure to provide adequate settlement and implementation support which includes extension
services has long been recognised as an issue. The evidence from the National Settlement and
Implementation Support Strategy for Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa (Sustainable
Development Consortium, 2007) confirmed the low level of support provided on the majority of
projects, which given the state of the extension service discussed above should not come as a
surprise.
In a review of projects in the North-West province (Kirsten & Machethe, 2005) it was found that
Projects received limited advice and support from the PDoA. The Department provided ‘advice' to
47% of projects and ‘support' to 5%, whilst 49% indicated that they had not received any help from
the Department.
A more detailed study of 43 projects revealed a significant decline in land under dryland cultivation
year on year. Many projects with irrigation potential had problems with infrastructure that made this
asset impossible to utilise. Forty-nine percent of projects were producing no marketable produce.
Only 7% indicated that they had standing contracts for the marketing of their produce. The vast
majority of project members (72% of projects) have not received any training in marketing matters,
while (87%) felt that there is a need for skills development in this area.
In a review of rural restitution projects CASE found that technical assistance on the 179 projects
reviewed was totally inadequate and that very often the government officials did not have
appropriate skills to provide the necessary technical assistance. (CASE, 2005)
The recently announced Land and Agrarian Reform Programme LARP has the stated intention of
providing comprehensive support to land reform beneficiaries to address this deficit. However it
remains to be seen how the settlement and implementation support needs can be met given the
narrow skills base and overstretched nature of the current farmer support and development
services.
There is a growing, even exponential mismatch between land acquisition targets and available
capacity to support people once they have acquired land. Currently support is often equated with
the provision of infrastructure through CASP as opposed to the day to day technical, institutional
economic and natural resource management support that is required. This highlights the warning
contained in the SIS strategy that “it can be reasonably forecast that that without urgent and
18significant investment in SIS services existing capacity will be overwhelmed, which could place the
entire land reform programme at risk”(Sustainable Development Consortium, 2007: xv)
Urban areas
In cities and towns urban agriculture is gaining increasing prominence. In the early 1990’s it was
estimated that 25 per cent of households in metropolitan Durban were cultivating a garden for
subsistence food production and 10% were selling produce. (May & Rogerson, 1995) In Umlazi
smallholders have formed the Umlazi Farmers Association (UFA), which has close links, with not
only the eThekwini Municipality and the Department of Agriculture. (Smith, Yusuf, Bob, & de
Neergaard, 2005)
The City of Cape Town has recently published an urban agriculture policy which focuses on
supporting agricultural activities by the poorest of the poor within the urban (built) areas.
The policy identifies the roles to be played by the City which include acting as a facilitator to create
an enabling environment for urban agricultural development through:
• reducing red tape,
• introducing and exercising appropriate regulations and management systems.
• acting as a catalyst for the provision of land, the construction of infrastructure and earth
works.
• Providing production inputs, project management and extension services, in some
instances
The policy distinguishes between:
• Home based activities – home dwellers using their back or front yards to grow vegetables
and/or to keep animals.
• Community based activities around public facilities, on public open spaces or smaller
pieces of unutilized land. It’s conducted on a part-time basis as part of a survival strategy
and includes both vegetable gardening and animal husbandry.
• Micro farmers involved in urban agricultural activities (both vegetable gardening and animal
husbandry) to create an income.
• Small emerging farmers, individuals or groups of people that are or want to be full time
farmers. (City of Cape Town, 2007).
Currently it appears that much of the support for urban agriculture comes from NGOs rather than
extension officials located within municipalities or the provincial departments of agriculture.
It has been argued there is a need to develop extension services specifically to advise urban
producers as current extension methods are based on rural experiences and does not necessarily
apply in the urban context. The urban setting requires technologies that are ecologically friendly,
use little space and are highly productive.  They need to utilise organic wastes and waste water,
need to be combined with other functions (e.g. recreation, landscape management, water storage)
and result in safe food. (De Zeeuw, Undated)
19Former Homeland and Act 9 areas
A number of initiatives have been targeted at former homeland areas including implementation of
an Integrated Household Food Production Programme (HFPP) i.e. Siyavuna (KZN), SiyaZondla (EC),
operation Qumithuli (dry land maize cultivation or field crops, New Massive Food Programme
(medium to large scale commercial farmers (area greater than 50 ha), Green Revolution, Resis (in
Limpopo) etc. together with a mechanisation project to provide such power tillers to small scale
farming communities in 60 local municipalities in 21 rural and urban development nodes targeting
food security projects.(Government of South Africa, 2006)
Eastern Cape
The Provincial Growth and Development Plan notes that public expenditure on agriculture
nationally, and in the Eastern Cape continues to decline. The former Bantustans constitute about
30% of the total surface area of the Province but are home to 67% of the population. They also
contain about 45% of the cultivable land. The plan notes that this important resource is still not
being utilised effectively to the benefit of the poor in the Province. The plan includes measures to
strengthen ‘agrarian transformation and household food security’ which includes a focus on the
growth of the agrarian economy in the former homelands through:
• programmes to promote household food security by expanded smallholder production;
• development of commercial agriculture through optimum use of the highest potential
agricultural land in the former homelands;
• a focus on land redistribution and, in the longer term, land tenure reform to release land for
poor households and for new commercial farming enterprises.(Provincial Government of the
Eastern Cape, 2003: 64)
The plan notes that the Provincial Department of Agriculture will need to be restructured to support
the new emphasis on food security which must result in a “refocused and decentralised extension
service, a reorganised organisational structure, investment in training, and sufficient funding for
core food security programmes.”(Ibid) Just how this is to be achieved has yet to be clarified.
Free State
The website of the Free State Department of Agriculture defines extension as “the provision of
knowledge and alternative methods to persuade clients to apply new or bettered practices out of
their own free will. This includes actions of facilitation within the principles of help to self help, to
prepare clients to adapt and be able to handle future problem situations”.
The Strategic plan for the Free State Department of Agriculture 2004 – 2007 highlights the lack of
capacity of extension officers and identifies a need for training, support and guidance by supervisors
and colleagues for extension officers especially with regard to specialised fields of activity.
Kwazulu-Natal
The 2004 – 2009 strategic plan for the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs
highlights the goal of “farmer succession – turning emergent farmers into commercial farmers”.
The MEC for Agriculture and Environmental Affairs recently highlighted provincial government’s
agricultural model which “seeks to position the emerging farmer at progressive stages along the
20continuum of the value-adding chain…pre-subsistence, subsistence, food security, entrant farmer,
commercial farmer and finally the exporter stage”. (Government of South Africa, 2008a)
The key focus areas in the Province’s ‘Agrarian Revolution Programme’ include food security, crop
massification, the Makhathini integrated plan, technology development, the mushroom programme,
livestock production and improved veterinary services combined with “mentoring emerging farmers
at the "post settlement" stage of land reform”. (ibid)
With respect to the extension services the MEC announced an 'Extension Recovery Programme' that
will retrain extension officers “along commodity lines to advance them as commodity agricultural
advisors”, and the establishment of an electronic monitoring and reporting system for extension.
(Ibid)
Limpopo
The Limpopo MEC for Agriculture reported that the province was “still extremely exposed and
challenged on the technical planning capacity in engineering, natural resource management,
agricultural statistics, agricultural economics and veterinary areas.”
The Department appointed 26 Local Agricultural Municipality Managers in February 2006, who were
responsible for the planning and integration of agricultural projects within municipal Integrated
Development Plans (IDP) and Local Economic Development (LED) processes.
With respect to extension and training support the Province launched the Limpopo Agribusiness
Development Academy (LADA), an initiative developed and funded jointly by the Limpopo
Department of Agriculture (LDA) and the Flemish government through the Flanders International
Cooperation Agency (FICA) to provide the required leverage and support needed to improve the
situation of emerging commercial farmers and agro-entrepreneurs. The objective of the
Agribusiness academy is to enhance and develop the agri-business skills of farmers and rural
agribusiness entrepreneurs (Government of South Africa, 2008b)
Mpumalanga
The MEC for Agriculture in the province reported in 2007 that “after a thorough assessment of the
support that we provide to farmers, we realised that the impact of such support on poverty and
unemployment is quite minimal. One of the reasons is that we spread our resources, human and
financial, extremely far and thin. We have therefore decided to have a focused and integrated
approach. It is an approach aimed at fostering the consolidation of resources to achieve maximum
impact on poverty and unemployment. Basically, we are arguing that ‘the fewer the
better’.(Government of South Africa, 2007)
During this current financial year an amount of R9,9 million has been budgeted for the
implementation of the Extension and Advisory Recovery Plan. This plan seeks to upgrade the skills
and working tools of the extension workers for better service delivery.
North West
No information was located on the plans to retain extension staff in the province, although it can be
assumed that an extension recovery plan is also part of the North West budget
21Western Cape
In a presentation to an Extension workshop in January 2008 the Head of the Farmer Support and
Development in the Western Cape highlighted key challenges with respect to extension provision
which included:
• a lack of programmed extension work;
• extension dominated by reactive interventions as opposed to proactive engagement;
• a lack of clear M & E criteria and capacity;
• unfunded vacant posts;
• the shortage of specialised technical knowledge;
• a shortage of business and economics knowledge;
• a lack of soft skills for effective engagement with land reform beneficiaries and emerging
farmers;
• a need to develop multi-skilled extension service officers.
Northern Cape
In the 2008/9 budget the Northwest Department of Agriculture has allocated 6.8 million rand for the
Extension Recovery plan which will be carried out over three years. A Northern Cape extension
indaba is planned for 2008.
International extension approaches
International development and extension discourse has distinguished between the training and visit
and transfer of technology models on the one hand with farmer first participatory and farmer led
extension approaches on the other.
Farmer First approaches became formalised in the late 1980’s. In a review of the approach 20 years
later it was observed that:
“The farmer first approach argued that much of the problem with conventional agricultural research
and extension lies with the processes of generating and transferring technologies, and that much of
the solution lies with farmers’ own capacities and participation in the research process. Over the
past two decades, this perspective has provided a very powerful critique of the conventional
organisation and application of agricultural R&D, with its emphasis on transfer of technology
models. This critique pointed out that if research develops and transfers technology in a linear
fashion to farmers very often these technologies are found to be inappropriate to the social, physical
and economic setting in which those farmers have to operate. At the very least such technologies
needed complementary organisational, policy and other changes to enable them to be put into
productive use.” (Ian  Scoones, Thompson, & Chambers, 2007)
Over time methods and approaches became more synthesised and learning process approaches
developed which combined participatory methods and traditional research tools. This marked the
shift from “participation in technology transfer to collaborative science and innovations systems”
and resulted in a  “creative proliferation of hybrid methods, mixing quantitative and qualitative
analysis, and social and biological approaches.” (ibid)
22In preparation for the Farmer First Revisited workshop at IDS in 2007 a research and extension
matrix was developed which highlights the shifting paradigms and approaches and the factors
which characterise each
Table 1: Changing approaches to agricultural research and development
Transfer of
technology
Farming systems
research
Farmer first, farmer
participatory
research
People centred
innovation and
learning
Era  Long history, central
since 1960s
Starting in the 1970s
and 1980s
From 1990s   2000s
Mental model of
activities
Supply through
pipeline
Learn through survey   Collaborate in
research
Innovation network
centred on codevelopment;
involving multistakeholder
processes and messy
partnerships
Farmers seen by
scientists as
Progressive adopters,
laggards
Objects of study and
sources of info
Colleagues   Partners,
collaborators,
entrepreneurs,
innovators: organised
group setting the
agenda, exerting
demand: „the boss‟
Scientists as seen
by farmers*
Not seen – only saw
extension workers
Used our land; asked
us questions
Friendly consumers
of our time
One of many sources
of ideas
Knowledge and
disciplines*
Single discipline
driven (breeding)
Inter-disciplinary (plus
economics)
Inter-disciplinary
(more, plus farmer
experts)
Extra/transdisciplinary – holistic,
multiple culturallyrooted knowledges
Farmers’ roles  Learn, adopt,
conform
Provide information
for scientists
Diagnose,
experiment, test
adapt
Empowered cogenerators of
knowledge and
innovation;
negotiators
Scope  Productivity.  Input output
relationships
Farm based   Beyond the farm gate
– multi-functional
agriculture,
livelihood/food
systems and value
chains across
multiple scales, from
local to global; long
time frames
Core elements  Technology packages   Modified packages to
overcome constraints
Joint production of
knowledge
Social networks of
innovators; shared
learning and change;
politics of demand
Drivers  Supply push from
research
Scientists‟ need to
learn about farmers‟
conditions and needs
Demand pull from
farmers
Responsiveness to
changing contexts –
markets,
globalisation, climate
change. Organised
farmers, power and
politics.
23 Transfer of
technology
Farming systems
research
Farmer first, farmer
participatory
research
People centred
innovation and
learning
Key changes
Sought
Farmer behaviour   Scientists knowledge   Scientist-farmer
relationships
Institutional,
professional and
personal change:
opening space for
innovation
Intended outcome  Technology transfer
and uptake
Technology produced
with better fit to
farming systems
Co-evolved
technology with better
fit to livelihood
systems
Capacities to
innovate, learn and
change
Institutions and
Politics*
Technology transfer
as independent:
assumed away
Ignored, black boxed   Acknowledged, but
sometimes naïve
populism
Central dimensions of
change
Sustainability*  Undefined   Important   Explicit   Championed – and
multi-dimensional,
normative and
political
Innovators  Scientists  Scientists adapt
packages
Farmers and
scientists together
Multiple actors –
learning alliances
Source: (Ian Scoones, Thompson, & Chambers, 2008)
The matrix provides a useful reference point for examining South African extension discourse. In
many respects this seems to have remained somewhat detached from international learning
processes and innovation. However certain groups in South Africa like the Farmer Support Group
have been firmly aligned with farmer led approaches critiquing key weaknesses with conventional
extension approaches and noting how high farmer to extension worker ratios, limited budgets,
scattered farmers result in poor client servicing. Because extension staff are forced to try and cover
large areas they often lack local knowledge and are forced to apply generic top down
approaches.(Mudhara & Salomon, Undated)
FSG argues that “farmers who know each other, and are often familiar of the nature of the challenge
that their neighbour is facing, can more effectively render advice when they know the solution to a
problem”. FSG advocates the use of community facilitators/animators who:
• act as conduit for information and technologies (and sometimes, inputs);
• mobilise the community for learning activities and people into groups;
• engage in training activities with the facilitating agent, and provide follow up support;
• work on their own activities and providing demonstrations from their own farm or
household. (Ibid)
The international research and extension discourse highlights the dynamic nature of the field from
methodological, technical, economic, hazard and risk perspectives. The first wave of farmer first
approaches were subsequently criticised for being naïve about relationships of power and scientific
and local knowledge. These were reappraised at the Beyond Farmer First workshop in 1992. The
Farmer First approach spawned mass of participatory methods including Participatory Research
and Gender Analysis, farmer field schools, integrated pest management, institutional learning and
change.
24However the traditional transfer of technology and training and visit systems continued to survive
and was transplanted from Asia to Africa. Often a high degree of institutional inertia has enabled old
ideas to continue as the dominant paradigm where it remains in contestation with new approaches
to collaborative learning and research captured in the table below.
The table expresses the broad shifts from older ways of thinking to newer ways of conceptualising
research, learning and the provision of support.
A shift from  A shift towards
Seeing knowledge generation as a final objective Seeing it as a means to achieve change; from
‘research’ to ‘innovation’
Research  Innovation
A focus on technology   A focus on people
Mainly reductionist understanding of the parts  A systemic understanding of the relationships
between the parts
Mainly ‘hard systems analysis’ (improving the
‘mechanics’ of the system)
Soft systems analysis’ (‘negotiating’ the
meaning of the ‘system’ and desirable
transformations)
Seeing participation as a matter of ‘consulting
beneficiaries’
‘Facilitating interactive learning between
stakeholders’, resulting in joint analysis,
planning, and hence collective action
Working individually   Working with others in flexible ad-hoc teams and
partnerships
Teaching   Learning
Being taught   Learning how to learn
Individual learning   Social learning
An exclusive focus on individual merit and
competition in R&D organisations
Collaboration and teamwork within and between
organisations
‘National agricultural research systems’  ‘National agricultural innovation systems’
Source: (Daane, 2007)
What seems clear is that these new ways of thinking, new attitudes, and new forms of collaboration
between organisations cannot be achieved by conventional training and professional development
systems. They require learning process approaches where different institutions and skills are
combined into a genuine reflexive practice.
Key issues and conclusions
The evolving paradigms, the changing research and extension agendas, the diverse needs of
smallholders in different agricultural subsectors and at relative scales of production contrasts
sharply with the current capacity available to address these opportunities and meet urgent needs
and demands.
 
The review of South African extension highlights a system which appears to be a deep, but only
partially acknowledged crisis. If we are to develop an implementable plan to boost the small holder
25sector practical ways will have to be found to address the many systemic weaknesses highlighted in
this brief review.
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THE CHALLENGE TO AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICES IN AFRICA

here is already ample evidence that the epidemic has changed the very fabric of the farming population, bearing implications for agricultural extension services. Apart from the routine difficulties faced in daily work in rural areas by agricultural extension staff in developing countries, the challenges that most agricultural extension services face are mostly of a technical and logistic nature. Some examples are insect pest invasions, outbreaks of serious diseases, locust attacks, severe climatic effects, natural disasters, or intensive campaigns for an increase in agricultural production. The challenge currently posed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic to agricultural extension organizations in sub-Saharan Africa, however, is quite unusual as it affects both staff and clientele and involves human emotions to a depressing degree, that is, in addition to technical aspects. This challenge has at least three major dimensions. First, the very nature of the extension work; second, the impact of the epidemic on the extension organization itself and its staff; and third, the impact of HIV/AIDS on the clientele of extension services. A brief analysis of these three dimensions is in order.

Nature of the extension work

Since most of the population of the countries, hardest hit by AIDS, lives in rural areas, a large number of people affected by HIV/AIDS in sub Saharan Africa are, directly or indirectly, engaged in farming. The workers, who have the most frequent contact with the small-scale farmers, are the field extension agents. The extension services, by their very mandate and character, are supposed to deal with traditional, mostly illiterate rural households, in order to provide them with technical advice not only on agricultural technologies but also on relevant subjects like farm input supply, credit, marketing and farm management. Most of the extension staff themselves have their genetic roots in rural families. They travel frequently in rural areas, many times spending nights away from home, and being offered “hospitality” in villages due to their status. Also, they are in touch with so many widows forced into farming because of their husbands’ death, who need extension advice. Thus, the extension workers have ample opportunities of getting involved with multiple sex partners. All these factors expose the extension staff to the maximum risk of HIV infection, especially with their very limited knowledge of the epidemic.

Impact on extension and partner institutions

Effects on extension workers as individuals

Extension staff apart from being more exposed to the risk of contracting the HIV infection due to their frequent visits to HIV/AIDS infected rural areas, are themselves suffering from the pandemic in many ways. Many of them are sick, some chronically. A number of their colleagues have already become victim to the disease, and more bad news is feared almost every day. The talk of colleagues’ demise is common in office meetings more than ever before. Then, they have the unbearable burden, in terms of time, money and energy, of taking care of their close sick relatives and visiting sick neighbours. Some of them have lost their spouses, thus leaving them not only grieved but also with the responsibility of taking care of minor children. The situation has forced some workers to pull their children out of school. Unlike in the past, the attendance of funerals is now a frequent thing, and it involves heavy costs due to ceremonies such as slaughtering of precious animals and serving meals to large number of persons. Low morale, depression, economic worries, and less productivity are now common in extension organizations due to HIV/AIDS. Extension workers who by training are required to motivate farmers to try and adopt new agricultural technology are themselves depressed and frustrated, and this affects their output.

Reductions and disruptions in staff

Discussions with government extension service officials reveal that their capacity for delivering satisfactory services is being affected by HIV/AIDS. This is due to disruptions in their programmes caused by deaths, protracted sickness and frequent absences of staff. For example, in Uganda, between 20 and 50 percent of all working time of extension staff is lost due to the attendance of funerals of AIDS victims and for the caring of sick relatives. A considerable number of skilled and experienced persons have died of AIDS. In the Central Province of Zambia, during the period 1991 to 1998, as many as 66 staff died due to HIV/AIDS-related causes, representing almost 20 percent of the loss of staff due to different illnesses. The same is true for many other provinces. In Malawi, where there has been a freeze on staff recruitment since 1995, a considerable number of vacancies have resulted from the death of front-line staff, worsening the already unsatisfactory extension agent to farmer ratio. For example, in one district, a Field Assistant is required to cover an area of about 400 square kilometers where 4 000 farm families live. The organizations, including public and non-public, are faced with time-demanding tasks of identifying, recruiting and training of new staff. The result of delays in replacing the deceased and very sick staff is that the reduced number of staff are not only psychologically depressed due to the loss of colleagues but they also have to handle a far heavier workload both within the office and outside in the field. This situation is bound to adversely affect the performance of agricultural extension organizations.

D. Deber/FAO/14519

Elderly people are back into farming as HIV/AIDS has killed young relatives

Increased organizational costs

Both public and private extension organizations and some relevant institutions have reported increased costs due to HIV/AIDS. The additional expenditure is related to payments for treatment of sick staff and their relatives, funerals of dead staff, compensation, salary advances, early retirements, recruitment and training of new staff, and for buying insurance coverage. According to the estimates provided by different private organizations engaged in extension work in Malawi, the cost of a funeral per death, depending on the status of the deceased staff members, could range between MK 1 000 and MK 50 000 (One US$ = approximately 70 MK). The increased costs are bound to affect the performance of public extension departments as most of them already suffer from very low operational budgets. The frequency of visits to the field will dwindle further and the few in-service training opportunities the staff have will also disappear.

Established technical practices going obsolete

The years old administrative, strategic, policy and operational practices of almost all relevant organizations, including public, private and NGOs, seem to be outdated due to drastic changes in the social structure including, income levels, patterns of life, and types of clientele, all caused by HIV/AIDS. Extension services, whether government, semi government, private, or NGOs, are linked to many other institutions and organizations such as those responsible for providing credit, technology packages, marketing facilities, land tenure, and plant protection. These organizations will also be affected in their operations and practices due to the effect of HIV/AIDS on the farming population. For example, there are now applications for agricultural credit from orphan- and widow-headed households, which are often not eligible according to the existing criteria for the approval of credit applications. The extension staff who, in general, are supposed to support the applications for rural credit, feel lost in the absence of the new criteria needed for this new clientele. The staff of rural credit institutions may be faced with a dilemma of their own since the applications for credit cannot be approved unless a revised policy is in place and a new set of criteria is available for the applicants to qualify. Similarly, the organizations and firms responsible for recommending farming systems and manufacturing farm equipment would soon find themselves wondering whether their recommendations and products are still as useful and in demand as they were before the epidemic hit.

Emergence of unexpected clientele and extension-demand environment

Drastic change in the composition of clientele

The epidemic is changing the traditional composition of the clientele for extension services. In the areas of high HIV prevalence, the category of healthy and able-bodied men, women and youth, in the late adolescence to middle age range, is the one that has been most affected by high levels of morbidity and mortality. One finds more women, children and elderly persons now engaged in farming due to prolonged illness and/or death of their spouses, parents, guardians and other members of the family. Paradoxically, the struggle for feeding a large number of children left behind by their parents who have died young, has forced many very old persons back into farming who had retired from active farming long ago. The emerging target population for extension services increasingly includes more physically weak, sick, and elderly persons, widows and young orphans. For example, according to UNAIDS estimates, in 2001, the number of AIDS orphans in Mozambique was 420 000, and by 2010, was expected to jump to one million. Zimbabwe currently has 700 000 AIDS orphans. These newcomers, who even though they are exposed to farming due to living in rural areas, have relatively less experience in agronomic practices, as compared to their elders, and have limited physical and technical capacities for the use of heavy tools, farm machinery and animal-drawn farm equipment.

FAO/19970

Elderly men are indirect victims of the epidemic

Change of this magnitude in the type and character of the clientele is bound to render the existing extension strategies and methods outdated unless they are adjusted in line with the new extension clientele and their needs. The public extension organizations, however, are not yet prepared to cope with the situation.

Distraction from farming activities

While travelling by road in the rural areas of the sub-Saharan African countries hardest hit by HIV/AIDS, the scenes of funerals are quite common. Both men and women, who should normally be busy in farming activities, are now forced by traditional customs, to frequently spend considerable time on attending the funerals and relevant ceremonies. These funerals are not only attended in their own villages but also in the surrounding villages for which they have to cover large walking distances. The situation does not only cause serious distraction from their normal farming operations, but also results in reduced contacts with the extension agents, and less participation in technology demonstration and training activities. The farms are being ignored and so are the contacts with extension staff.

Farmers’ increasing queries on HIV/AIDS

The notoriously persistent denial and “conspiracy of silence” about HIV/AIDS, common among rural communities, is gradually giving way to relative openness. The stigmatism, denial and secrecy are still prevalent, but so many and so frequent deaths occurring in the area among relatives and friends can no longer be simply ignored. The escape from HIV/AIDS has understandably become as important a priority for farmers as the once eagerly sought technical advice on increasing agricultural production. The farmers’questions are no longer limited to farming. There are so many queries related to HIV/AIDS. However, the extension staff who know little about the epidemic and have not received any special training in this subject, feel helpless and embarrassed in front of the farmers. They are not in a position to offer any useful information or meaningful advice.

Worsening supply of farm labour, food insecurity, and poverty

According to UNAIDS, HIV/AIDS infections are highest amongst adults aged between 20 and 40, who account for about three-quarters of all AIDS cases. The emerging households, where the men and women of most productive age have either died or are disabled by prolonged sickness, are now headed by orphans, adolescents, the elderly, and quite often weakened and sick adults, and have fallen deeper into poverty and food insecurity. This is because fewer family members can now spare the energy and time for earning wages in rural and non-rural employment. According to a study done in Ethiopia, AIDS-afflicted households spent 50 to 60 percent less time on agriculture than those not afflicted.

In the United Republic of Tanzania, researchers have found that women spent 60 percent less time on agricultural activities because their husbands were ill. In addition, infection rates are rising among African women, who account for 8 out of 10 of Africa’s small farmers, and who traditionally provide the vital coping skills needed in times of food crisis. The latest statistics shows that women now make up 58 percent of Africans already infected. At present, 14.4 million people risk starvation in six Southern African countries where about 15 million are HIV positive and 1.1 million were lost to the disease in 2001. AIDS has been identified as one of the causes of this famine and the single most important cause of vulnerability in the region.

By one estimate, approximately two person-years of labour are lost by the time one person dies of AIDS, due to his/her weakening and the time others spend giving care. According to FAO, AIDS has killed about 7 million agricultural workers since 1985 in the 25 hardest-hit countries in Africa, and it could kill 16 million more before 2020. The loss in the agricultural labour force through AIDS in the nine hardest-hit African countries, for the period 1985-2020, may be projected as follows: Namibia 26 percent; Botswana 23 percent; Zimbabwe 23 percent; Mozambique 20 percent; South Africa 20 percent; Kenya 17 percent; Malawi 14 percent; Uganda 14 percent; United Republic of Tanzania13 percent (FAO, 2001).

K. Dunn/FAO/17372

HIV/AIDS has created a large number of orphan children

This trend could have at least four serious implications. First, deepening and expanding poverty due to loss of income; second, an increasing shortage of farm labour required for production tasks such as land preparation, ploughing, sowing, weeding, harvesting, and post-harvesting activities; third, drastic food shortages; and fourth, increased vulnerability to the epidemic due to increased poverty and food insecurity. This is a vicious circle beginning with the start of the HIV infection of some persons and ending with the infection of many more persons.