CLASIFICACIÓN RECEPTORES

UNIT 3 TRAINING AND VISIT SYSTEM IN

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a well-defined organization, mode of operation and provides continues feedback from the farmers to the extension and research workers. It also allows for continues adjustments to the farmers needs.

It is spreading rapidly in many developing countries because of its effectiveness as a means of increasing agricultural production and incomes of farmers and as a flexible management tool that is suited to the needs of many developing countries.

Its basic extension techniques is a systemic programme of training the Village Extension Workers (VEW) combined with frequent visits by him to the farmer‘s fields. Its central theme is efficiency in the use of resources available to the extension service and the farmers.

3.2 : Merits of T & V System

The key advantages of T & V include:

i. It improves the organization of the extension service by introducing a single line of command with clearly defined duties at each level.

ii. It establishes a well-defined geographical boundary of operation for each extension worker.

It improves coverage by limiting the number of farmers the extension worker is expected to visit.

It limits the number of extension supervisor to supervise ratio of not more than 1:8 which allows for adequate monitoring of performance and concentration of efforts to achieve maximum impact.

It provides a systematic programme of short training courses at which instructions on the current technical messages to be extended to the farmers are explained to the VEWS followed by a predetermined schedule of visits to selected contact farmers.

i. It improves extension‘s tise with agricultural research through the provision of subject matter specialists who are expected to maintain regular contacts with the research institutes and to ensure continuing flow of technical information to the farmer‘ problems back to the research institutes.

ii. It removes all non agricultural extension functions from the responsibility of the extension workers.

iii. It provides adequate transport facilities or other logistics support

that help improve the mobility of the extension worker.

3.2.1 Demerits/Criticisms of T & V System

i. It assumes that all the essential infrastructural facilities and essential inputs are already available and are in good working condition shape in all development countries. Many of these countries still have a long way to go to establish viable institutions to take care of these;

ii. It is too rigid, top oriented and does not allow for active participation of the farmers in its programme planning;

iii. Not many developing countries can afford to have the large number of subject matter specialists (SMSs) required to make the system effective;

iv. It is costly to operate because of high recurrent personal costs;

v. It is too heavily focused on technology transfer at the expense of human resource development;

vi. Because of the hierarchical authority structure of many extension organizations and long channels of communication in the extension organization in many countries, supervision is not often sufficiently positive or morale boosting.

3.3 : Features of Training and Visit System

The system involves the systematic application of well-known management principles with a view to professionalizing the extension service. These principles or the basic features of the T & V according to Benor (1984) are as follows:

1) Professionalism: This is the capability of extension staff to identify production problems in the field, recommend appropriate messages to solve them and train farmers on how to use the messages on their farms.

2) Single line of command: The extension service should technically and administratively be responsible to a single unit of authority.

3) Concentration of efforts: This emphasizes the educational role of extension service, that non-educational function should be severed from extension. And in training sessions focus should be on major or impact points.

4) Time bound work: Farmers are taught in regular timely

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scheduled son that they make the best use of their information and other resources at their disposal.

5) Field and farmer orientation: Emphasizes that the village extension agents must spend most of their time visiting farmers and their farms.

6) Regular and continuous training of their field staff through fortnightly training for village extension agents and black extension agents and through Monthly Technology Review Meetings (MTRM) for subject matter specialist and other staff should be ensured.

7) Linkage between Research: This system supports a close tow way linkage between research and extension based on joint responsibility for field activities such as identifying production constraints and formulating production recommendations and organizing MTRM.

Other essential features and requirement of the T & V monitoring are built on supervision, continuous up-grading of staff monitoring and evaluation of all extension activities and provision of production recommendations that are economically feasible and relevant to the needs and resources conditions of the farmers.

The main idea behind the system is to have a competent VEWs who will visit farmers frequently and regularly with useful technical messages and bring farmers problems to research (Benr and Baxter, 1984). They maintained that the methods to achieve this may very from place to place to suit the prevailing conditions but the features must be closely followed. Otherwise the potential effectiveness of the system, which then may no longer qualify as training and visit extension will be drastically curtailed.