The support system from the federal to the local level and feedback mechanism from the local to the federal level have been disrupted following the restructuring of the state
The agricultural ministry's organisational structure has changed as a result of the state restructuring following Nepal's historic transition from a unitary to a federal democratic republic in 2015. Regional directorates, district-level structures such as the District Agriculture Development Office (DADO), District Livestock Service Office (DLSO), and sub-district level structures, namely, the 378 agriculture service centres (ASCs) and 999 livestock service centres (LSCs) have been abolished.
Additionally, cooperative divisional offices overseeing the cooperatives have also been dismantled. A Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives has been established as part of the establishment of province-level organisations. This ministry operates agriculture and livestock development-related directorates, province-level laboratories, agriculture knowledge centres (AKCs) and veterinary hospital and livestock expert centres (VHLEC) at the district level. Furthermore, the municipality's agriculture and livestock depart-ments have been established with the sole responsibility for agricultural and livestock extension.
In essence, these structural changes aim to deliver effective agricultural extension services for increased production and productivity.
It is disheartening to see how agriculture sector's performance has deteriorated over the years. One of the key reasons for this poor performance is that agriculture extension function, which is the heart and soul of agriculture growth, is missing from this structural change.
The private sector, which has been a driving force in agricultural transformation, has a tangential involvement in the agricultural extension system. It is disappointing that only 25 per cent of farmers have access to extension services.
The support system from the federal to the local level and feedback mechanism from the local to the federal level have been disrupted. Municipal-level agriculture technicians feel abandoned by provincial and federal government agencies, while federal and province-level agencies do not receive the information they require from the local levels.
AKCs, which replaced the DADOs, have now become subsidy dispensing centres, raising concerns about flagrant subsidy misuse. Unfortunately, the crucial role of agriculture extension is missing from majority of the AKCs.
The current research, extension and farmers linkage mechanism is broken, paralysing the agriculture production system. Thislinkage is essential for creating a demand-driven agriculture research and extension system, putting farmers at the centre. Municipal level agriculture sections are heavily understaffed and lack the capacity to facilitate pluralistic extension for effective service delivery. Instead, distribution of resources to populist programmes has been a common trend.
Coordination, co-existence and cooperation are the cornerstones for effective governance at all threelevels of government as envisaged by the constitution and provisioned by the Federation, Province and Local Level (coordination and interrelation) Act 2020.
There is a provision for several coordination committees at the political level.
Still, such a coordination mechanism is missing at the operational level, which is why agricultural institutions at all levels are dis-tracted and confused.
The organisational structures will be functional only when missing links of agriculture extension are reinvigorated in the system. It is, therefore, essential to revisit and revitalise the current agriculture extension structure to enable it to provide timely, high-quality and adequate service for solving the formidable challenges the agriculture sector faces.
AKCs (and VHLECs) need to be restructured to serve as a nodal point for: a) in-teracting with research, extension and education; b) ensuring coordination and cooperation among different levels of government; c) enhancing the capacity of municipal agriculture units, the private sector and cooperatives.
Conventional agriculture extension considers "farmers" the only target audience, and other stakeholders engaged in the commodity value chain are generally excluding from programme intervention. It is crucial to acknowledge their contributions, evaluate their limitations, and consider them target audiences for programme intervention to help create a wealth-creating value chain where each value chain actor gets a fair share of the profit.
Developing and managing partnership programmes engaging the private sector, cooperatives and non-governmental entities should be the integral function of government extension, particularly at the local level. This entails a need to enhance the competence of extension staff in organisational capacity assessment, contract management, creating favourable policies and procedures, monitoring and evaluation, and coordination and linkages with other stakeholders in addition to keeping abreast of extension communication technologies.
Information technology (IT) has been expanding at an alarming rate, with 82.79 per cent of the population in Nepal having access to internet service. However, Nepal's extension system has been unable to benefit from the surge in digital technology. IT-mediated agriculture extension can revolutionise the prevailing agriculture extension system by rapidly expanding the extension coverage effectively and efficiently.
In conclusion, agricultural extension service has been disrupted after the institutional restructuring of the three tiers of government.
There is a lack of coordination, cooperation, and co-existence among the three tiers of government, resulting in inefficiency in service delivery.
The linkage mechanism between research and extension, which existed prior to restructuring to some extent, has been completely broken. It is envisaged that the actions listed above will allow the current structure to become more organic and service-oriented.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 28, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
