COVID-19 and Extension & Advisory Services (EAS): fostering agricultural good practices over the coronavirus crisis

AESA, a network for extension and advisory services in South Asia, has launched a webpage dedicated to promoting dialogue and knowledge sharing on agricultural development across the region.

Sharing knowledge and developing local capacities are fundamental steps towards sustainable development, requiring complex, robust and sustained learning and networking processes. In South Asia, the Agricultural Extension in South Asia (AESA) engages in fostering local ownership through a series of activities across the region, including extension and advisory services as well as sharing good practices in agriculture.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, AESA is strengthening its online activity in order to promote knowledge management about the crisis and its knock-on effects for farmers across South Asia. The network has started a new section in its webpage on COVID-19 and EAS aiming to:

1. Discuss how EAS can support farmers in dealing with the impact of COVID-19;
2. Share good practices from EAS primarily from South Asian Countries, and;
3. Promote tools and frameworks to help EAS better address these challenges.

So far AESA has published specific experiences (in the form of Blogs and Field Notes) from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka on how Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) are supporting farmers to deal with various challenges arising from COVID-19 spread and the subsequent lockdown imposed to address this.

The AESA network invites practitioners to access its COVID-19 and EAS webpage section at: https://www.aesanetwork.org/news/covid-19-eas/. Visitors are encouraged to share their experiences on how their organisations are supporting farmers to deal with the impact of COVID-19.

More than increasing the visibility of their own efforts, contributors will be assisting others’ learning and inspiring improvements in sustainable farming practices.

COVER PHOTO:
Dominik Hundhammer