Exploring the emerging facilitation and brokerage roles for agricultural extension education

Alex Koutsouris

No 2012-4, Working Papers from Agricultural University of Athens, Department Of Agricultural Economics

Abstract: The purpose of this piece of work is to investigate, through a literature review, the role of intermediaries in agricultural extension and rural development. In the first place, a general view of the roles of intermediaries, as depicted in literature, is presented. Then, one of the main types of intermediaries, facilitators is outlined based on a comprehensive review of the literature, particularly in the healthcare sector. Following, the emergence of facilitators in agricultural literature is explored pointing to a new understanding of facilitation which implies its transformation from exploitation to exploration, i.e. from information dissemination to co-learning facilitation. A number of examples from agriculture-related literature illustrate such an argument. This review points to the fact that, at least as far as agriculture-related theory and practice are concerned, intermediaries as co-learning facilitators signify rather new roles requiring specific and, to a large degree, unexplored skills. Given that that there is still a number of issues threatening the efficacy of facilitators it is argued that there is an urgent need for facilitation to be better described, operationally defined and well-evaluated so as to allow for both a better interpretation and guidance of practice

Keywords: Intermediaries; facilitation; extension; rural development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 Q16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2012
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