Dairy Extension Strategies in Australia: Application to the Pakistan Dairy Industry

Abstract

Extension services in Pakistan focus on the application of technology and practices rather than on farmer needs. This is illustrated by the lack of "dairy-specific" staff employed for dairy extension in Pakistan until the recent introduction of the concept of the 'White Revolution'. Private and public sectors in Pakistan operate "competing and overlapping" agricultural extension programs, and when providing extension information to farmers, they tend to favour those who are educated and own land. Given the large number of poorly educated and tenant farmers in Pakistan, there is a need for reorganisation, redesign and restructuring of dairy extension strategies particularly for the medium size farm sector that contribute some 7 percent of the country's milk production. Extension strategies used in the Australian dairy industry have played an important role in information dissemination of new technologies and have for some time involved participant led and group focused approaches which could possibly be adapted to Pakistan. This thesis investigated strategies employed by extension professionals (government and private) and dairy farmers operating in New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria. The aim was to identify perceptions of the effectiveness of extension strategies; and thereafter determine if these strategies may be appropriate for use with the Pakistani medium-sized dairy sector. The research involved case studies of 18 extension professionals and seven dairy Farmers across the states of NSW and Victoria. These individuals were interviewed using semi-structured interview techniques and responses were transcribed and then thematically analyzed qualitatively using Nvivo version 9. The findings revealed that the participants use at least four extension strategies, namely "group", "one to one", "mass-media" and "web-based" with group extension being the most commonly used in both NSW and Victoria. However "one to one" extension was considered to be the most effective extension strategy by all the participants. Respondents highlighted the importance of "web based" extension and considered it to be an emerging effective strategy for the future. Mass media was also considered as a good supportive extension strategy. These findings suggest that there will be a particular need for development of public-private extension collaboration within the Pakistani industry.