Civil agronomy: a new dimension of agricultural extension to invoke poverty issues for sustainable rural development

SUMMARY

This paper is the outcome of a PhD study conducted in two villages of Sri Lanka in relation to technological change and the rural poor with specific reference to agricultural extension: more precisely, extension messages and methods, cultivation choices, and institutional linkages. The paper reveals that reformulation of the concept of extension (including the civil agronomy dimension) will allow agricultural extension services to adopt non-directive or problem-solving strategies towards an overall development of the rural (poor) population. As a consequence, the poor can influence the content of the extension agenda and the technical message arising therefrom. This influence in turn, will shape the composition of the production support services in rural development such as extension, credit, mechanisation, input delivery and marketing in civil society.

Key words:

• rural poor
• extension messages
• cultivation choices
• institutional linkages