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NSW Agriculture, 161 Kite St, Locked Bag 21, Orange NSW 2800. |
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Abstract
The NSW State Government has repeatedly expressed a commitment to continue the provision of free advisory services to NSW agricultural producers and the wider community. Sustainability and natural resource management (along with productivity issues) remain a significant focus.
NSW Agriculture is unique among State Departments of Agriculture in maintaining a large publicly funded network of extension staff and also in maintaining two agricultural colleges.
Our extension services are closely linked to research and regulatory activity, and are supported by a focussed information delivery infrastructure involving a website, print publications, media and library services.
Our agricultural colleges are committed to the provision of quality vocational education and training to the rural sector and we are exploiting synergies between the technical and facilitatory expertise of our extension staff and formal educational expertise at the colleges.
Trends in Extension and Education Staff Numbers (EFTs)
Overall staff numbers devoted to extension and education have increased significantly in the past five years, especially in the environmental area.
|
June 1995 |
June 2000 |
Agronomists |
60 |
58 |
Horticulturalists |
27 |
28 |
Livestock Officers |
63 |
57 |
Rangelands Officers |
0 |
3 |
Weeds Advisors |
3 |
3 |
Veterinarians |
22 |
20 |
Water, Soils, Environmental Management & Waste Remediation Advisers |
27 |
90 |
Education Officers |
33 |
45 |
Farming for the Future Advisers |
0 |
14 |
Other Farm Management Economists |
12 |
2 |
Industry Development Officers |
5 |
9 |
Technical Specialists |
0 |
24 |
Total |
252 |
353 (+40%) |
Increasingly complex goals and delivery issues
The Department’s vision is sustainable, profitable agriculture in NSW and Australia. Outcomes to support this vision will increasingly be reported against the triple bottom line – economic, environmental and social.
Policy
There are obvious trade-offs between
- Economic development or profitability and sustainabiliy.
- Emphasis on public investment only where there is market failure means that government funding is tending more to public good issues (environment, food safety etc) rather than traditional production and productivity issues, where industry funding is more appropriate.
- Contract research and industry goals need to be integrated with government and community goals and aspirations.
- Appropriate transition mechanisms and levels of service present a challenge when negotiating co-investment levels with industry bodies.
- The economic and social frameworks for priority setting need strengthening.
- A genuine whole-of-government approach including Commonwealth and States is often hard to attain and requires extensive negotiations.
Extension
- The focus of extension has shifted from single enterprise production and productivity issues to a farming system or holistic view including sustainability, satisfying consumer demands and managing the farm business, all in a global context.
- Many more service providers or knowledge transfers are available in the industry than ever before.
- NSW Agriculture has a role in facilitating the sharing of information not only between producers but also vertically through supply/technology chains, between industry and scientists, and between industry and the wider community.
- There is increased reliance on group activity and adoption of adult learning principles, due not only to budgetary constraints but also to the recognition that these are very effective and powerful tools as mechanisms for motivating changed behaviour.
- Financial and technical benchmarking are both critical in developing a business focus. Benchmarking and business skills need private sector involvement and better partnership models should be developed.
- Information overload is an issue for providers and clients alike. There is often a dilemma between generalisation and specialisation.
- The need to integrate and develop customised advice that is often a skilled, multi-disciplinary and labour intensive task, and has resource implications for the organisation.
- Electronic delivery of information allows for greater efficiencies. In the short term traditional information delivery still must be maintained to ensure all clients are serviced.
Education
• The Australian National Training Reform Agenda and Australian Quality Framework is driving the delivery of vocational education and training, and is competency based.
• Encouraging extension staff to become accredited trainers provides the opportunity to operate within ‘informal’ as well as ‘formal’ modes according to client needs. It also provides for a wider geographic and technical access to Vocational Education and Training (VET) by clients.
• Maintaining an appropriate balance between free extension services and the trend towards cost-recovered education delivery is a challenge for staff and managers.
• Collaboration with other education providers in both development and delivery of courses, the reliance on Commonwealth funding, and competitive cost recovery pressures provide additional challenges.
These are some of the realities facing public (and private) extension organisations.
Reductions in some budgets, the reliance on funding from other sources, the trend towards ‘ user pays’, the concept of 'competitive neutrality' in the costing of services when seen to be of private benefit, and the impact of the National Competition Policy, have led to significant changes and a major re-think in the way NSW Agriculture supports and delivers its extension and education services.
In addition the requirement from government (and other funding bodies) for increased accountability for program spending has led this organisation to critically assess the means by which we can evaluate the effectiveness of what we deliver and the efficiencies with which new and existing technologies are being applied.
Planning of Extension as an integral part of research design.
Since 1996 many of NSW Agriculture’s extension resources have been either located at or closely aligned with nine Centres of Excellence, strategically located throughout the State.
Each Centre specialises in key agricultural industries and issues and provides a completely integrated approach between research, agricultural extension and education, and in some case regulatory services. Of special importance are the links between each Centre and other providers. It has resulted in hands-on cooperation between NSW Agriculture’s staff, CSIRO, Universities, R&D corporations, other government agencies and most importantly industry itself. Each Centre is linked to a number of smaller agricultural research and extension sites around the state in the same area.
A number of these smaller centres are developing their own fields of expertise.
As a result of this strategy researchers and extension staff are working together to better to achieve industry goals.
Within NSW Agriculture there is a strong emphasis on industry involvement in program priority setting. Planning for the extension of information from research projects is a mandatory component of many research projects. The reliance on R& D corporation co-investment for much of the applied research has helped to drive this. Even more important has been the move towards "farming systems" research where farmers and industry organisations are involved in all aspects of the R, D&E - from planning prioritising, problem solving, interpreting of results, taking ownership of the decisions inherent in any program and technology transfer.
Importantly, the use of industry committees, project committees and so on allows involvement of the end users of new technologies and systems that are being developed in defining and extending the research. R D&E is therefore focussed on solving the problems articulated by these end users. This is a very powerful and effective means of achieving adoption of new technologies or systems.
Key success factors include:
- A critical mass of research and extension and education expertise that is recognised and funded by both government and industry via Centres of Excellence and our agricultural colleges.
- An understanding of the mutual gain to be obtained from consensus problem solving, education and building ‘people’ capacity when working together to achieve common goals.
- Involvement of representatives of all client groups in the decision making process.
- Involving the end user throughout the R, D&E activity.
Extension outcomes versus extension expectations
It should be noted that with ‘good planning’ of a project, the realistic expectation and realised extension outcome should be similar and attainable. The involvement of end-users in the planning process will help ensure this.
Key influences that determine the ‘real’ adoption of change will depend on:
- the ‘information bank’ from which the client makes a decision to change or adopt new strategies.
- recognition of the changes required to ensure that extension outcomes are met for either skills, knowledge or behaviour.
These influences need to be recognised and planned for with key stakeholders in the early planning stages as they will have an impact on the research activity, the process of extension or technology transfer required, and subsequently the adoption rate.
- Use of problem solving, educational and human development techniques ("soft skills") during all planning stages, allows not only the client but all stakeholders to modify their thinking, skill and resultant behaviour, in a safe environment. This aids realistic extension outcomes.
- Similarly the adjustment rate of an industry and the proportion of innovators and laggards will guide expectations.
- Adoption is normally primarily guided by dollars but many other factors including less labour intensive methods, easier lifestyles or more environmentally friendly technologies are also important.
Evaluation as a dynamic part of extension programs
The requirements of government and industry funding bodies for increased accountability are driving the incorporation of evaluation strategies for all R, D & E programs. Increasingly, funding is not forthcoming unless reasonable outcomes and an evaluation strategy has been developed and incorporated in project design.
Within NSW Agriculture evaluation of extension programs is variable. Programs with easily measured outcomes such as disease or residue reduction, or introduction of high yielding crop varieties tend to have quantitative targets built in. These targets provide the basis for a feedback loop to industry/government steering committees or project management committees.
The evaluation of some other programs, involving progressive and adoptive optimisation of farming systems, is much more difficult and is often largely ad hoc and subjective, relying on the close relationship staff have with their clients and industry for feedback on whether goals have been achieved.
In addition many of our programs and staff performance assessments incorporate performance indicators that require measurement of outcomes not just outputs. These performance indicators will form the basis for future evaluation strategies.
Implications of these approaches for Australian Public and Private extension in the next 10 years
There will be an even greater need to be client focused, market focused and to understand the capabilities of the client.
Increased participation by all stakeholders in the planning of R, D & E activity will continue.
Greater collaboration will occur with all stakeholders, understanding the strengths /weaknesses of the individuals and organisations in the economic, technical and social world in which the R, D & E project is working.
There is a need for the development and promotion of good working models and frameworks where public and private providers can work in partnership to the mutual benefit of all stakeholders.
Recruitment requirements and staff development practices are being substantially modified. Extension staff and services need to be multiskilled, requiring skills in group facilitation, consensus negotiation, project management, strategic planning, evaluation and adult-learning– along with an appreciation of the wider operating environment within which other stakeholder groups are operating.
The development of ways to involve representatives from all stakeholder groups into the decision-making process without "meeting or group burnout" is critical.
Development of effective evaluation strategies for extension needs on going attention. NSW Agriculture is devoting more resources to planning and evaluation, and to staff development to ensure that they have these skills.
