Empowering women and youth through extension services can lead to profitable farm-based enterprises, greater access to credit, and improved rural livelihoods, an expert in agricultural extension services has revealed.
Dr. Lillian Lihasi, the Executive Director of the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), said that with the emerging trends in the wake of technological advancement, extension services must also go digital.
Speaking during the 3rd National Agricultural Extension Symposium in Nairobi, Dr Lihasi noted that it is time to come together as countries and stakeholders in the agriculture space and get appropriate solutions to extension services.
“It is time to come together and get a solution that is responsive to farmers, women and young people, and this is by engaging them in extension and advisory services,” she said.
Dr Lihasi decried the limited number of extension agencies for farmers, saying it is time that the youth are engaged in what they know best, and that is digital extension.
“We have to leverage the potential of young people; they are faster, dynamic, and innovative, and investing in them means we are way ahead in extension and advisory service.
Olosula Adeyemo, Lead, Sustainable Farming, Distribution, and Youth in Extension at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), said that young people and women are central to the work they do and that they have been creating opportunities for the young people in extension services.
“One of our biggest programmes at the moment is actually focused on youth, and together with the MasterCard Foundation-funded programme, we’re looking at how to create meaningful work opportunities for young people, bringing them on board and appealing to them through technology,” he added.
Adeyemo further said that they are looking at ways in which to engage young people in policies, in speaking out their minds, not just as recipients, but as people who can shape decision-making.
The community-based advisory model, he explained, is one major model that allows young people to enter into a private sector-led type of extension system by resourcing them from their own community.
“They are known within the community; they are quickly trained and equipped with packages, including digital devices that enable them to interact with farmers and interact with private sector actors like input suppliers. They earn income as they engage in all these, and they are able to also set up their own mini businesses,” Adeyemo said.
Barbara Mwaura, from the ADS, said the youth and women are involved in the National Extension and even at the devolved governments and that through capacity building they are sponsoring them in education for solar and biogas, and in turn they serve farmers in the field.
“We are implementing the scaling up Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) project for the agri-food value chain transformation project, and Drhave has involved the women and also the youth in the extension services,” she said.
Mwaura further noted that they have been engaging learners in Kabete National Polytechnic, where they are being trained on how to integrate RETs in the agri-food value chain, and this will go beyond the project, with most of them serving as technicians who will go to farmers and help them integrate the technologies.
Leonard Kubok, the Director of Crop Resource Management at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, who attended the symposium, said that the government recognises the important role extension and advisory services play in transforming and modernising
“The intervention measures outlined in the Kenya Agricultural Sector Extension Policy (KASEP) 2023 will enhance the standards of our agricultural extension systems and ensure that extension services will be prioritised,” he said.
Kubok noted that the policy focuses on demand-driven extension, leveraging technology, and harmonising approaches to improve service delivery and farmer incomes.
By Wangari Ndirangu
