Recognising a climate for sustainability: extension beyond transfer of technology

Sustainable agriculture emphasises the fundamental role of the human component in a production system, as opposed to conventional agriculture, which centres on technologies. Therefore, it is characterised by the abilities and behaviours that farmers display, including the knowledge and skills they possess, decision-making processes they apply, and individual and collective actions they take. This has strong implications for extension development and organisation, in that the methodologies applied should be oriented towards enhancing farmer capacities favourable to sustainable agriculture, rather than towards achieving adoption of standardised technologies. These capacities include sound ecological knowledge, observational, analytical and experimental skills, and inclination towards collectivity to allow farmers to make better, informed decisions for location-specific agro-ecosystem management. Extension approaches favouring this type of learning are participatory, experience-based and adaptable. Needs and opportunity assessment, participatory technology development, defining the implications for farmers of the implementation of an innovation, and development of a learning curriculum (first for farmers and then for facilitators) are among the sequential phases for solid extension development for sustainable agriculture. Applying underlying principles of participatory capacity development, rather than fixed, condition-specific models, provides a generic framework for extension development under diverse ecological and socio-cultural settings.