Farmer

Support

This innovation looks to influence and enable the national policy on extension and advisory services and test the collaborative approach to providing farmer support as defined in the policy.

Key aspects of the policy worth noting are:

• The policy defines extension and advisory services as the active collaborative engagement of all stakeholders
• The policy proposes a move away from traditional top-down approaches to focus on responding to users’ expressed needs, ambitions and circumstances, linked to participatory, shared research and learning.
• The policy sees a reduced operational role for the state focusing on setting policy directions and coordinating extension and advisory services.

The innovation has engaged with stakeholders in KwaZulu-Natal Province with the aim of seeking agreement on how the different stakeholders can begin to work according to the collaborative model.  The innovation envisages setting up a pilot of this collaborative model.

For more information about this project, please contact Kenneth Carden directly: kenneth@southernafricafoodlab.org