NAIROBI DECLARATION ON AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION AND ADVISORY SERVICES CONTINUED

RECOGNIZING:

  • That smallholder agriculture and family farming is the core contributor to agricultural production in most developing countries, and therefore vital for achieving food and nutritional security goals, for reducing poverty and improving livelihoods and for responding to climate change;
  • That within dynamic innovation systems, extension plays an indispensible role as facilitator, knowledge broker and matchmaker between service providers and support agencies on the one hand and smallholder farmers and other entrepreneurs especially women and youth on the other;
  • That efficient agricultural extension and advisory services strengthen the capabilities of smallholder farmers to take advantage of realistic and remunerative opportunities through access to knowledge, credit, markets and related services;
  • That a coalition of public, private and civil society actors at national, regional and international levels is needed to revitalize and modernize agricultural extension and advisory systems in support of agricultural innovation.

NOTING:

  • That the conference generated significant interest, mobilized multiple stakeholders and demonstrated a need for greater emphasis on extension and

advisory service within the global agricultural development agenda;

  • That in response to the disarray caused by underinvestment in extension and advisory services; extension practitioners, farmers’ groups, researchers, policymakers and development partners are generating a wave of imaginative attempts to revive extension;
  • That a plethora of demand-led, situation- and context-specific, gender sensitive and climate-smart policies, strategies and initiatives are being implemented;
  • That this multitude of policies, strategies and approaches has yet to achieve the desired impact on the agricultural and rural sectors;
  • That policy and institutional changes are urgently needed to create realistic and remunerative opportunities for smallholders;
  • That national funding for agricultural extension and advisory services remains at a low and variable level;
  • That the renewed national, continental and global interest and commitments for increasing investment in agriculture provides a momentous opportunity to deliver extension and advisory services that are farmer- centred, participatory, well funded, demand-driven and performance oriented.