Policy Initiatives for Improving Competencies of Agricultural Extension Graduates for Promotion of Agricultural Innovations

Agricultural education and training systems still have some refinement to dofor producing workforce-ready graduates. Even after continuous upgrading once in five years through Deans committee recommendations the existing curricula in Agricultural Universities are getting lots of criticism and still there is a mismatch to meet the demands of the needs of both modern industry employers and those of farmers. To address this lacuna, the present study was conducted in Kolar, Tumkur and Chikkaballapur districts of Karnataka state to identify possible areas according to agricultural extension professionals on the areas training is needed by field agricultural extension for effective promotion of agricultural innovations. A large group of agricultural extension professionals felt that, effective training should be given on techniques to develop long-term extension program plans, establish programming priorities and techniques of in need or problem assessment. Lack of required number of technical and non-technical staff at the field level, political interference and promotion of politically motivated popular subsidy schemes were major hurdles faced by the field extension professionals. The field level extension professionals opined that, more emphasis has to be given to techniques to use formal information gathering, digital communication skills in extension and techniques of evaluation of extension programs on an annual basis.