Editor's Note [Volume 24 No. 3 (2024)]

https://doi.org/10.18697/ajfand.128.ED137

Let us talk about Agricultural Extension

I have always been interested in agricultural extension from the time I used to see extension workers visit my mum, then a peasant farmer in the village, working hard to make sure her family was always food secure. Even though her husband (my father) was out on a government job, she understood that she had to do her bit. His salary would be reserved for paying school fees for the children, putting up good housing, and providing some material goods that could put them at a certain level in society. Cash was highly valued, as it still is today. My mother was not farming to sell. Whatever excess she had would be shared with needy relatives and neighbors. With the support of extension workers who used to provide free seeds, teach how to make compost manure, and then guide farmers all the way to harvest and storage, we never lacked food except when there was a very serious famine. I remember feeling hunger pangs, at a time when we had porridge only for breakfast, no lunch, and then had a full meal at dinner. The memory of those hunger pangs is the reason why I am not happy when I hear of children going hungry for whatever reason.

Agricultural extension means extending knowledge to farmers, knowledge that has been generated by scientists in the laboratory or the field. But as I ventured into the field, where farmers are, I realized what a minefield of information it is, and how so critical it is to ensure that extending knowledge cannot be one way. I used to enjoy lab work in high school chemistry, biology, and zoology. I continued in university and into doing my PhD work. But all this changed when I undertook my fieldwork for my PhD dissertation. It was like I had been let out of a bubble. I could not believe the level of poverty I saw, the types of malnutrition, and the degree of ignorance in parents when it came to child-rearing. I could not believe that I was seeing this in my own country of Kenya, which at the time was proudly proclaiming food self-sufficiency.

As always, I became very curious. What do we mean by food self-sufficient? A family can be hungry and food insecure and even have members who are emaciated as their nation proclaims to be food self-sufficient. As I witnessed all this, it always brought me back to the extension worker in khaki uniform who used to guide my mother on her farm, as my mother diligently worked the farm knowing she would get a good harvest. It reminded me of how much I used to enjoy harvesting the maize together with the women who were helping my mother to do this.

After this initial harvesting, only taking the good cobs, we children would still go back to scout for leftovers. This would fetch us a few coins to buy snacks. I was not aware of hunger during those days except when we had outright season failure, or when at one time locusts came and wiped out all the green there was, but then we survived by eating the locusts. We could eat the locusts because they were fresh, not sprayed with dangerous chemicals.

As time went on, the extension service system changed. More and more farmers got less and less attention, yet as a country, we continued to proclaim: "Agriculture is the mainstay of our economy", and yet; we do not fund agricultural research, we eat and yet do not care about those who produce the food, we cease to value our food and our palates are confused by foreign foods that are not as nutritious as our own? And now, the climate change impacts are ravaging our food systems in ways we do not understand. And then we act helpless. Who will come to the aid of subsistence farmers upon whom we still depend? That is why this special issue on extension is important. It has been a while since we put out the call.

I am not sure why good papers did not come quickly. Finally, we have very good papers and a great Editorial from seasoned scientists doing great work on the continent's farming sector. Our readers are free to comment and to engage with authors online.

My personal view is that extension professionals are needed as much today as they were in the fifties when my mother was a subsistence farmer. In Africa, that one-on-one interaction with the farmer will not become irrelevant soon. One international NGO that I became closely associated with more than a decade ago is Sasakawa Africa Association, whose clarion call has become: Walking with the farmer, and it means exactly that. Farmers need motivation to grow beyond what the family needs; we still need these millions of smallholder farmers to be able to feed a fast-growing world population. We need them to maintain a robust food economy and the rest of the local economy. That ensures happy people ready to contribute to the national economy and to the fulfillment of their own families.

However, the farmers need knowledge as well as being appreciated as they share their own innovations and knowledge. Farmers are perpetual scientists, but where can they share or publish what they know? A recurring question to ponder.


Prof. Ruth Khasaya Oniang'o
Founder and Editor-in-Chief, AJFAND
ORCID: 0009-0005-8344-9093