Using market system approaches to support public agricultural extension services

Agricultural extension services provide critical knowledge in the form of techniques and skills to farmers, with the aim to improve the productivity and sustainability of their operations. Traditional, public, top-down service models are often unable to meet farmers' needs. This has led to a shift towards decentralised and pluralistic systems, involving diverse public and private sector providers. The focus of this webinar was how development agencies working on market systems can effectively support agricultural extension services. Speakers also discussed why and how market system approaches can work rather than compete with public agencies, the roles of market actors, and the experiences and lessons from programmes taking this work forward on the ground. The presentations are from Kristin Davis (Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services), Mahmud Zaman (Katalyst), and Matthias Herr (Helvetas). More on the topic can be found at http://www.beamexchange.org/en/agriculture/