Agricultural Extension Services in Indonesia : New Approaches and Emerging Issues

Indonesian agriculture is at a
crossroads. Supporting the livelihood of millions of
Indonesians, it needs to underpin renewed and robust growth
of the economy; and be a key component of the
Government's poverty alleviation strategy. The
challenge for the future is to reinvigorate productivity
gains among rural producers, and provide the foundation for
long run sustainability of these productivity gains.
Productivity gains are key to farmer income growth, and for
this rebuilding the research and extension systems that have
seen a marked deterioration in recent years will be
critical. The experience of the Indonesian decentralization
of its extension system has been mixed, with adverse impact
on extension through sharp reductions in funding, and
removal of central-level guidance. At the same time, a
series of positive debates and experimentation in management
have taken place from a shift on top-down to participatory
approaches, input and technology dissemination to
dissemination of market and upstream information and
technology, from centrally managed extension services to
decentralized services, and some movement toward
privatization of extension. In this context, an assessment
of the agricultural extension services, as seen through the
lens of the impact evaluation of the Decentralized
Agricultural and Forestry Extension Project (DAFEP), was
deemed to be timely and relevant. This report thus has the
following objectives: i) provide an overview of the
institutional changes in agricultural extension in
Indonesia; ii) present the results of the impact evaluation
of DAFEP; and iii) discuss lessons learned and emerging
issues in the new political and institutional context.