By: Lucy Mwangi, Jean Baptiste Hategekimana, and Gracie Rosenbach
Timely, appropriate, and straightforward agricultural extension is essential to promoting good agricultural practices and contributing to sustainable food security. However as the climate changes, technology improves, and demographics shift, agricultural extension must continually evolve to remain relevant. The Feed the Future Developing Local Extension Capacity (DLEC) project seeks to improve agricultural extension and advisory services through action, evidence, and advocacy in 15 countries. DLEC places large emphasis on: 1) leveraging the potential of the unique capabilities and reach of digital technologies in extension; and 2) encouraging greater participation of youth in extension since they are the future of farming.
In Rwanda, IFPRI is collaborating on DLEC with Digital Green and the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services to advance these goals through a needs assessment of the digital readiness of extension staff, focusing especially on youth. The needs assessment consists of a literature review, key informant interviews, and an agricultural extension agent phone survey. In this post, we discuss the key trends, gaps, and lessons learned from the literature review, which will inform the subsequent pieces of the needs assessment.
We carried out a review of the existing information on agricultural extension in Rwanda to better understand the current context. Looking at public and private sector documents, plus academic literature, we examined the current context and recommended best practices on extension training, the role of youth, and the level of integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in extension. This needs assessment comes at the perfect time, as the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources is developing the new Customized Agriculture Extension System (CAES) to enhance the current Twigire Muhinzi program, and the CAES will heavily focus on the role of digital technologies to align with the goals of the ministry’s current strategy, the Fourth Strategic Plan for Agriculture (PSTA 4).
First, we focused on the current capacity strengthening activities in Rwanda, which are mostly decentralized and target a range of extension workers at both central and local levels. Extension agents are trained both in technical skills (such as good agricultural practices, veterinary extension, fisheries and aquaculture extension) and functional skills (such as conducting farmer trainings and organizing group meetings). These capacities are very comprehensive, but could benefit from the addition of other topics such as specialization in specific crops and value chains, marketing, value addition, and climate resilience; all of which are planned to be incorporated in the CAES. The needs assessment also identified that a more central training program, such as a specific educational institution, would be very useful in ensuring a more uniformed curriculum of technical and functional skills. In addition, much more emphasis should be put on functional or “21st Century” skills such as communication, group facilitation, and critical thinking.
Next, we looked at the involvement of youth in the extension system. Youth involvement and empowerment are key aspects of the development of the CAES. New digital agricultural platforms and mobile applications are being developed in strong collaboration with the country’s youth, such as an ICT for agriculture hackathon, the creation of the Rwandan Youth in Agribusiness Forum (RYAF), and the “Farming is Cool Rwanda” initiative which offers e-learning programs, online diplomas in agrotechnology, and the use of social forums to encourage youth to engage in agriculture. The public and private sectors and development partners recognize the important potential of the youth in the agricultural sector, and so the CAES will target recent graduates in both the public and private sectors for internships, fellowships, and entry-level opportunities linked to extension training and capacity development. Those developing the CAES anticipate that the youth will also help to motivate and facilitate the smooth transition of shifting to a more digital extension system.
Finally we sought out information on the use of ICTs being used for agricultural extension. Rwanda greatly values digital innovation and integration into all sectors of the economy, as evidenced by the ICT Sector Strategic Plan, in which agriculture is a key priority area. Within the agriculture sector, innovation and extension is one of the PSTA 4’s priority areas, whereby ICTs will be promoted to increase the impact of extension and improve market information, service delivery, financial inclusion, climate risk adaptation, and farmer feedback. Many studies show that although ICTs require additional training, they can greatly improve the quality, consistency, and frequency of extension agents’ outreach. For example, Digital Green has found much success in other countries with their mobile training applications and extension videos, which help extension agents and farmer promoters to better understand the best practices and to more easily and readily share them with farmers. It is predicted that in Rwanda, increased use and knowledge of ICTs by extension officers will lead to more productive and beneficial interactions with farmers.
This literature review identified Rwanda’s strong commitment to the integration of digital technologies and youth in agricultural extension, and the research previously conducted in Rwanda and other East African countries shows the large benefit that this integration can have on yields, conservation, farmer incomes, and overall food security. However many questions remain about how to best integrate youth and ICTs into the CAES so that the new extension system can be as efficient and effective as possible. For example: What digital technologies have already been employed? Which ICTs are extension agents already familiar with? What opportunities exist to digitalize extension services that would be welcomed by extension agents and farmers alike? To answer these questions, we are now embarking on key informant interviews with industry leaders and a phone survey of agricultural extension agents to improve our understanding of how to best leverage technology in Rwanda’s extension system.
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