Comparative Effectiveness of Extension and Advisory Service (EAS) Providers in a Pluralistic Extension System of West Bengal, India

Agriculture employs a staggering population in India; most are small and marginal. Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) are crucial for uplifting the rural poor. The extension approach has seen several paradigms shift from relying solely on public extension to a more pluralistic approach with increased roles of private, non-governmental, and community-based organizations. For measuring effectiveness from existing literature, seven indicators, namely, Accessibility, Accountability, Relevancy, Responsibility, Timeliness, Cost Effectiveness, and Empathy, and 25 statements were initially selected and sent to 60 judges for relevancy. From the 52 responses received, the relevancy weightage of each statement was calculated, and based on that, 19 statements were finalized. And these statements were used to measure the effectiveness of farmer’s perception regarding the effectiveness of different EAS providers, namely, ATMA and Dept of Agriculture, KVK, Input Dealers, and FPCs in three West Bengal districts, namely, Birbhum, Jalpaiguri, and Nadia. 20 farmers for each extension advisory service provider were considered, totaling 80 in each study district, and 240 respondents from three study districts constituted the sample for the study. Combining the mean perception, the effectiveness was calculated and compared among the EAS providers. It was found that FPC was perceived as the most effective EAS provider, whereas ATMA and DoA, Input Dealer, and KVK ranked second, third, and fourth, respectively.