Public Private Partnership in Agricultural Extension Management: Experiences of ATMA Model in Bihar and India

Abstract

The introduction of the Training-and-Visit (T&V) Extension system was an important milestone in the history of extension in India. The basic premise of T&V was that there was enough technology available awaiting diffusion to and adoption by farmers. The Training and Visit (T&V) Extension System was effective in disseminating Green Revolution technology, especially in the high potential, irrigated areas, but it had little effect on the productivity and incomes among farmers in rainfed areas. During the mid-1990s, the Government of India and the World Bank began exploring new approaches to extension that would address these system problems and constraints. The result was a new, decentralized extension approach, which would focus more directly on agricultural diversification and increasing farm income and rural employment. The central institutional innovation that emerged to address these system problems was the Agricultural Technology Management Agency or “ATMA” model that was introduced at the district level to: 1) Integrate extension programs across the line departments (i.e., more of a farming systems approach), 2) Link research and extension activities within each district, and 3) Decentralize decision-making through “bottom-up” planning procedures that would directly involve farmers and the private sector in planning and implementing extension programs at the block and district-levels.