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| An overview of Zambia's Agricultural Extension and Advisory System
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Petros Chavula,, Belay Teressa, Marie Grace Ntezimana, Yusuf Umer, Mwaba Muleba, Solomon Shentema
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Abstract:
For economic development and the reduction of poverty, agriculture is one of Zambia's top priority sectors. Extension and advisory services enable smallholders and businesses to have access to technology and information. In order to promote participatory multi-stakeholder innovation processes, extension and advisory services are progressively tying together significant stakeholders including producer organizations, research institutions, higher education, agribusiness, and lone producers. There are three different categories of service provider models: integrated market models, service provider models, and information-focused models. The main agricultural service providers in Zambia are the private sector, non-governmental organizations, international development partners, and farmer organizations, such as the Zambia National Farmer Union, small-scale farmers associations, livestock services, and Agrivet. Agricultural extension and advisory services are hindered by several issues, including field extension workers' inadequate comprehension of participatory extension methodologies, planned extension programs' focus on non-operational value chains, insufficient and underperforming livestock service and farmer training centers, poor extension planning, reporting, and feedback cultures, and insufficient in-service and refresher training for front-line extension workers. However, in Zambia, the agriculture extension and advisory services play a crucial role in disseminating information among farmers in rural and urban areas farmers despite facing a number of challenges and/or obstacles. However, this piece of article gives a quick overview of Zambia's agricultural extension and advisory services delivery.
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