Towards redesigning the Agricultural extension service in South Africa: views and proposals of extensionists in the Eastern Cape

The Eastern Cape's Department of Agriculture's extension service is in vital need of revitalization. The extension recovery plan has started this process, but international developments in agricultural extension suggest that the present extension model is outdated. The purpose of this paper is to firstly, acquire a SWOT-analysis from the extensionists on what they perceive to be the services strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Secondly, to enquire of the extensionists what they perceive to be the problems that the service is facing as well as their perceived roles, the desired outcomes of the extension service and activities to attain these outcomes. This is achieved through using an Objective-Orientated Intervention Planning process, which is an adapted form of Logical Framework Analysis. The main results from this study were what the extensionists perceived to be the activities required to reach the desired outcomes of effective extension. This paper is highly relevant as it follows a bottom-up approach in acquiring what extensionists believe to be the way forward and this paper will contribute to a forthcoming paper that will propose a redesigned extension service.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Van Niekerk,J. A., Stroebel,A., Van Rooyen,C. J., Whitfield,K. P., Swanepoel,F. C. J.
Format: Digital revista
Language:English
Published: South African Society of Agricultural Extension (SASAE) 2011
Online Access:http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0301-603X2011000200005
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