Agricultural extension, which refers to activities relating to the dissemination of agricultural information and technical guidance on farming, has had its golden and gloomy eras in Indonesian history.

Agricultural extension practices move forward in line with dynamic social, political and economic development processes. At the time when agricultural development was a top national priority, agricultural extension was dynamically improved. On the contrary, when agricultural development has been a low priority, agricultural extension remained gloomy and stagnant.

Regardless of the controversial impacts of the green revolution on socioeconomic and environmental resources, the historical fact is that the golden era of agricultural extension in Indonesia was the green revolution program. Agricultural extension has played pivotal role in increasing production of rice, Indonesia's staple food crop.

Since the beginning of the 1970s, extension officers at all levels of mass guidance programs (BIMAS) have supported each other in delivering technical guidance on rice cultivation to farmers in rural areas. They have introduced an integrated rice cultivation system known as panca usaha tani (five farming management). With full political and financial support, extension staff were more than capable of working effectively.

Effective extension activities became the determining factor of the success of improvements in rice productivity. Before the green revolution, rice productivity was 1-2 tons per hectare.

Implementation of modern inputs and new technological production has increased rice productivity to 2-4 tons per hectare.

Attainment of rice self sufficiency at a national level in 1984, which has been regarded as very important event in national agricultural history, can not be separated from the full implementation of institutionalized and systematic agricultural extension.

But times changed and agriculture slipped on the list of national priorities. A new paradigm of industrial development based on agriculture became inappropriate. New industries generally had no relationship with the agricultural sector. Consequently, agricultural development stagnated.

The institution and management system of agricultural extension has been changing. Institutional affiliation and competency requirement for extension officers also confusingly changed many times.

Under the green revolution, officers who should have direct contact with farmers were organized at the subdistrict level. In the 1990s, there was no clear pattern of extension institution. In many cases extension bodies at the district and sub-district level were liquidated.

Concerning staff competency, orientation also changed. Initially, competency changed from single food crop competency to plural competencies. After several years, competency requirements reversed again to singularity. This has been confusing for staff and has rendered many of their efforts ineffective.

The Law of Regional Autonomy has led to uncertainty with regards to the institutional affiliation and staff management of agricultural extension. Ideally, regional autonomy implementation will ensure and make closer service delivery to the public adjusting local conditions, but in fact it is still far from the client expectation.

Local leaders with a deep concern for agriculture understand the strategic role of extension. In contrast, many cases show that local leaders and politicians are unconcerned with agricultural development.

The gloomy era of agricultural extension caused the stagnation of agricultural production. This led to the proposal of the Law on Agricultural Extension.

After lengthy discussions, in 2006, Law No.16/2006 on Extension Systems for of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was finally passed. Among the main points of the law is the arrangement of extension bodies at all administrative levels. In addition, the local government should contribute to the funding and of relevant extension bodies.

In practice, this is not so easy. The interpretation of the Law on Regional Autonomy, which created a big space for local leaders and politicians to manage the necessary local institutions, has in many cases led to the neglect of agricultural extension.

The recruitment of 10,000 new contract workers in 2007 was another recent agricultural extension policy. This helped overcome problems on staff shortages in many areas. The shortages were caused by retirement and staff reorganization after the implementation of regional autonomy. In many cases, the performance of contacted staffs was problematic. The employees approached their jobs as tentative positions, which affected their spirit and performance.

In line with changing global challenges, agricultural has been experiencing a great dynamic progress.

The old approach to extension, which emphasized technological transfer and information dissemination, is no longer sufficient.

The challenges of agriculture are more complicated, and therefore, if agricultural extension as the provider of public goods lacks the capacity to play such an important role, they will be missed out by their traditional clients.

Recently, private extension services from national and multinational corporations and NGOs have been meeting the needs of rural farmers. Public extension staff should compete toughly with them.

In the new era of agricultural development, extension staff should perform three main functions: technological transfer, facilitation and advisory work. In order to support these functions, extension officers should be capable of using information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Extension issues also have moved from traditional production issues toward more complicated challenging modern agriculture issues. Staff should have a full understanding and knowledge of global issues.

This includes being able to prepare local farmers to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of global warming and teaching farmers how to meet the requirements of the global agricultural market. It is the main task of extension officers to help farmers overcome these problems and issues.

The writer is a lecturer at Gadjah Mada University, a PhD Student at the University Tokyo and Chairman of IASA-Japan.

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