CAPACITY BUILDING THROUGH EXTENSION EDUCATION

Abstract

Capacity building of famers in general and small farmers in particular is imperative for commercial farming. The US-AID funded Balochistan Agriculture Project (BAP) has organized small producers into groups called Farmer Marketing Collectives (FMC) in order to create economies of scale and improve their bargaining power vis-a-vis traders. Capacity building is an integral part of the design and is meant to promote adoption of best practices that ultimately increase revenue and reduce costs. This is achieved through the prominent farmer field school approach by extending its scope beyond production to cover post-harvest management and marketing as well. BAP has established 683 community organizations (40% women) as its partners in the participatory development while for commercialization, 32 FMCs have been set up with members drawn from these community organizations. FMCs are mandated with the efficient disposal of members’ produce. Effective capacity building has paid dividends in the form of incremental sales ranging from 12 to 47%. Paper will describe the capacity building and its financial gains to the farmers.