Extension Services in Contract Farming : An Explorative Study of Potential Parameters

Contract farming as a form of organising agricultural production is fast gaining acceptance and popularity among agricultural policy planners as a viable and efficient route to increase agricultural production. In this environment, the role of extension needs to be reassessed to make it vibrant and relevant to the emerging challenges. This paper attempts to explore some dimensions of extension services which can be used to study and understand the extension service delivery process and methods. The extension services rendered under the contract farming show wide variation in scope, content and approach adopted for delivery. This can be studied based on some of the key attributes based on different criteria like nature of knowledge transferred, nature of technology dissemination, extension approach, the timing, frequency and place of service delivery etc. The provisions for supply of related services and pricing of extension services are other parameters on which different models of contract farming differ. Market orientation, client orientation, and economy of service orientation are three major changes that extension has to successfully negotiate in the emerging scenario. The challenge will be to refine the science of extension in a manner that will enable it to remain relevant and retain its utility in the changing agricultural scenario.