ACTIVE ‘EXTENSION’ BY HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS : HOPE TO SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY more

ABSTRACT ACTIVE µEXTENSION¶ BY HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS : HOPE TO SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY Pradeep Dwivedi and K C Bharati Extension services from universities must ensure the active participation of local farming communities. Participation, if it is to become part of extension, must clearly be interactive and empowering. Any pretence to participation will result in little change. Allowing farmers just to come to meetings or letting a few representatives sit on committees will be insufficient. The studies found that students and staff who took part in the projects benefitted from the context specific experience of putting theory into practice, while community members acquired skills, knowledge and understanding that they were able to put to immediate use. It also found that needs analysis and multidisciplinary engagement were key to supporting communities effectively. But long term involvement was desirable to ensure self sufficiency. Fortunately, multidisciplinary approaches are already in successful use by extension professionals. Extension education discipline must make a effective entry in each and every institutions engaged in the Endeavour of social development. Extension education discipline, the only discipline across the globe, has official monopoly to generate and document the social technologies which influence the human behavior in such a manner that bring the desirable changes in people¶s attitude, knowledge and skills toward applied scientific and technological contents and an innovation is diffused or research results are communicated among ultimate users resulting in societal growth (Dwivedi at el, 2011). All successful moves to more sustainable agriculture have in common coordinated action by groups or communities at the local level (Pretty, 1995). But the problem is that platforms for resource use negotiation generally do not exist, and so need to be created and facilitated (Brinkman, 1994). Similarly, extension services by different universities/ higher education institutes and government / non- government organizations (NGOs) must have a common platform for effective delivery of nonformal education bringing behavioural changes desireable for participation in sustainable agriculture initiatives. Dwivedi (2008) suggested multi-ministerial approach by establishing an apex body to coordinate wide range of extension services and formulating Right to Extension Education (Act) to ensure efficient community engagement at different level of knowledge sharing by different stakeholders. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The twin objective of FOOD SECURITY and SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE can find its way only if farmers¶ attitudes, knowledge and skills are influenced through participatory as primary mission instead of only directing them to look forward toward GREEN TECHNOLOGIES.