FAO-Upscaling Climate Smart Agriculture: Lessons for Extension And Advisory Services
Upscaling Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) entails changing the behavior, strategies and agricultural practices of millions of agricultural producers. Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) can play a very important role in upscaling CSA, but they need to be better organised to do so. This paper explores how EAS should be organized to support the upscaling of CSA by drawing lessons for EAS from four successful cases namely: natural resource management, crop management, varietal improvement and weather insurance. It used the Innovation Management Framework which identifies three elements that are critical for innovation: functions, actions and tools. To contribute fully to upscaling CSA, the paper argues that EAS providers need to broaden their mandate, partner with other relevant actors in the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS), deepen their level of engagement with the research, prepare for a long-term effort and seek to influence the enabling environment through policy advocacy.
Add Comment