Do we have adequate market orientation in our public extension system

Abstract

India is having quite a comprehensive public extension system to cater to the knowledge requirement of farmers. Though, inclusive approach with focus on marketing is required for sustainable development of agriculture. An attempt is made to assess the orientation of extension functionaries towards agricultural marketing extension activities while performing their responsibilities. The findings are based on the information collected from extension functionaries representing different public organizations. A five point Likert-scale was used to capture the response over five categories of activities namely production, capacity building, institutional building, marketing and investment and other office related work. The findings indicate that majority of functionaries are working directly with the farmers with each serving 1205 farmers which is much higher to the numbers ideally an extension functionary should serve as suggested by DFI Report. The extension functionaries are focused more on production, capacity building and other office related activities. The focus in slightly less on institutional building and marketing and investment activities which are considered to be vital in present time commercial agriculture with focus on income enhancement. The findings will facilitate in bringing the desired shift in agricultural extension from production to market-oriented for realising the true potential of agriculture. There is need to follow an extension strategy that goes beyond public agencies and encourage involvement of private players to increase the effective number of extension functionaries available to serve farming community.