Farmer-to-Farmer Extension Model: Issues of Sustainability& Scalability in Indian Perspective

Abstract

Farmer to Farmer (F2F) extension approach in agriculture is a systematically utilization of community leadership and informal communication between farmers. This approach aims to strengthen the information flow and enhance the agricultural production. As a generic term we use it as ‘farmertrainer’, even though we recognise it by different names e.g. lead farmer, farmer-promoter, community knowledge worker may imply different roles.F2F approach helps in building the effective, farmer-centred extension systems and empowering farmers as change agents for improving livelihoods in their communities.F2F model can reduce the extension cost and workload of extension functionaries in a large country like India where extension worker and farmer ratio is very wide. Moreover, this approaches needs community as well as government support for sustainability and scalability.