Constraints in Utilizing Awardee Farmers for Agricultural Extension as Para-professional Agents

Despite a wide range of reform initiatives, the coverage and quality of agricultural information provided to farmers is uneven. This has created a “knowledge gap” indicating the inefficiency of the system. The ratio of extension agents to farmer being 1: 1162, it is imperative that the Indian extension system faces acute shortage of extension professionals (Dalwai, 2017). To plug these gaps and nullify the shortage of professionals, the farmers can be utilized as paraprofessionals, by taking advantage of their opinion leadership. Progressive farmers can assume the role of paraprofessionals to make way for “Farmer to Farmer Extension” approach that can increase the efficiency and reduce workload of extension functionaries and ensure sustainability. Various institutes bestow progressive farmers with awards. These awardee farmers command certain amount of opinion leadership which has remained untapped. However such an approach of Farmer to Farmer Extension will not be free of bottlenecks and they need to be overcome for utilization of awardee farmers in extension work. Astudy was conducted in Karnataka state to find out the constraints faced by awardee farmers in taking part for extension work. A total of ninety three awardee farmers as well as thirty extension agents were consulted to find out the constraints. The study indicates that lack of infrastructure at farmers'level and lack of provision and budgetary allowances are the major constraints as reported by awardee farmers and extension professionals respectively.