National Agricultural Extension Systems in Nepal Dr. Nil Kantha Sharma Communications Specialist Nepal Economic, Agriculture and Trade (NEAT) Activity (USAID Project), Lalitpur, Nepal E-mail:
[email protected] Cell: 00977-9841272108 National Agricultural Extension Systems in SAARC Countries - An Analysis of the System Diversity 292 Executive Summary Agricultural extension service is one of the major under takings of government to educate, disseminate information and support the livelihoods of the Nepalese farmers. The extension service provides both productive inputs and services to teach farmers about improved technologies so that they can improve their productivity, incomes and standard of living. The extension service also helps to empower the farming communities by forming farmers groups to help them to decide on how best use of available local resources and to articulate the needs of farmers. Since 1950, government has implemented several extension models and approaches with donor support or support from the government's own resources. The models / approaches adopted in Nepal are conventional, T and V, Block Development, IRDP, Tuki, Farming System Research, Farmer Group Approach, Contract out / Partnership of Extension Programs, IPM (Farmers Field School) and others. These approaches all have some strengths and weakness but all of these approaches / models have made significant contribution to educate and transfer of technology to the farmers. Initially, Agricultural Extension System in Nepal was mostly used as synonymous to government/public services. The economic globalization, liberalization, privatization and advent of information and communication technologies have been brought tremendous changes in the field of agriculture development. The needs and interests of the farmers, knowledge and information on production technologies and production objectives are changing rapidly.