LIVESTOCK EXTENSION EDUCATION

LIVESTOCK EXTENSION EDUCATION

Features of livestock

·         Plays an important role in the rural.

·         Additional income to the livestock farmers.

·         variety of livestock are available for

o   draught power

o   milk

o   meat

o   eggs

o   wool ensures

·         have an intimate relationship with livelihood particularly in arid and semi-arid areas

·         a major source of supplementary income for rural households

·         highly livelihood intensive

·         provides sustenance during drought and other natural calamities to rural families

·         an important pathway for increasing the income of marginal and small farmers and landless labourers

Concept of Extension Education

·         James Stuart - father of University Extension in England in 1867-68

·         The term extension education was first used by Cambridge University in 1873

·         Land Grant Colleges in the United States of America formally established the Agricultural Extension work by integrating different activities of the colleges.

Branches of Extension Education may include;

·         agriculture extension

·         livestock extension

·         home science extension

·         fisheries extension

Defination

The word extension is derived from the Latin roots “ex” meaning “out” and “tension” meaning “stretching”. “Extension education is stretching out to the people who are beyond the limits of educational institutions”.

The National Commission on Agriculture (1976) refers to extension as an out of school education and services for the members of the farm family and others directly or indirectly engaged in farm production to enable them to adopt improved practices in production, management, conservation and marketing.

Extension involves the conscious use of communication of information to help people to form sound opinions and make good decisions (van den Ban and Hawkins 1996).

Extension is also defined as a professional communication intervention deployed by an institution to induce change in voluntary behaviour with a presumed public or collective activity (Roling, 1988).

These definitions indicate that extension is for;

i)        extending educational advantages

ii)      forming sound opinions to make good decisions

iii)    inducing changes in voluntary behavior.

The education is effective when it results in changes in all the following behavioural components as specified by Paul Leagans:

i)                    Knowledge - What an individual knows?

ii)                  Attitudes -What he thinks?

iii)                Skills (both Physical & Mental) -What he can do?

iv)                Action - What he actually does?

Objective of livestock extension education

·         to empower the farmers with appropriate and recent technological knowledge and skills

·         to teach people living especially in rural areas how to raise their standard of living by their own efforts using their own resources of manpower and materials with the minimum assistance from Government

·         to help people to solve their own problems through the application of scientific knowledge

·         to bring desirable changes in the quality of life of the target group

·         development of livestock farmers

Philosophy

According to Ensminger, Extension involves

·         changing attitudes, knowledge and skills of the people.

·         working with men and women, young people, boys and girls to answer their needs and wants.

·         helping people to help themselves

·         principles of “Learning by doing” and “Seeing is believing”

·         development of individuals, their leaders, their society and their world as a whole.

·         working in harmony with the culture of the people.

·         a two way channel

·         a continuous educational process.

Extension Educational Process

According to Leagans the sequence of steps involved in the process are (i) situation analysis (ii) formulation of objectives (iii) deciding the content and teaching methods (iv) outcome evaluation and impact analysis and (v) feedback and formulation of corrective action.

Effective Teaching Learning Situation

Teaching in extension education reflects the philosophy of change in knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, beliefs and understanding.

The teaching learning process is usually explained with the help of the following six steps:

Attention: Bringing attention of the learner is the first and foremost step in the teaching learning process.

Interest: Once the learners’ attention is focused next responsibility of the teacher is to arouse the interest in the learner towards the subject matter.

Desire: Once the interest is created the teacher has to sustain the interest and stimulate the learner to convert the interest into desire.

Conviction/ Belief: The action followed when desire, conviction and satisfaction of the learners is achieved. Therefore, the teacher should see that the learner knows what action is necessary and just how to take that action. He also should help the learner to visualize the action in terms of his own situation and gets confidence in his ability to apply the things by himself in practice.

Action: In this step the conviction is converted into action and the job of the teacher is to make his student act in the lines of the knowledge acquired. Action means implementation in the actual situation.

Satisfaction: The end product of the teaching effort is the satisfaction that comes to the learner as a result of solving the problem, meeting a need, acquiring a new skill or some other change in behaviour. The goals of learning are achieved through accomplishment of the learner in applying the knowledge and achieving satisfaction out of the results.

Research revealed that people learn

·         1 % through taste

·         1.5 % through touch

·         3.5 % through smell

·         11 % through hearing

·         83 % through sight

Dale Edgar’s (1964) illustrates that people tend to remember

·         10 % of what they read

·         20 % of what they hear

·         30 percent what they see

·         50 percent of what they hear and see

·         70 percent of what they say

·         90 percent of what they say and do

Elements of an effective learning situation

It comprises of

·         Teacher

·         Learner

·         Subject matter

·         Teaching materials

·         Physical facilities

Fig 1: The Elements of a Learning Situation

Teacher: The teacher plays an important role in arousing the interest of the learner and sustains it throughout. He should be able to create a congenial learning situation wherein the learner participates actively in the teaching process.

Learner: The participation of the learner in the teaching process depends upon the extent to which the subject matter is useful to him and it was communicated in a manner that he can understand very well. The learner’s ability in learning a subject depends upon the extent to which his sense organs are involved in the process of learning.

Subject Matter: The topics chosen for teaching must address the needs of the learners which is necessary to sustain the interest of the learners. It is advisable for the extension professionals to conduct need analysis to assess and prioritize the areas of interest to the learners.

Teaching Materials: There are various ways of teaching a subject matter to the learners. Here too the teacher plays an important role in selecting appropriate teaching materials or aids which suit to the subject matter, learners and local situation. But in no case these materials will substitute a teacher. These are only aids which need to be used judiciously taking into consideration various factors which include the characteristics of the learners, availability and cost of aids, familiarity with the use of aids and subject matter to be delivered.

Physical Facilities: The place where the subject matter has to be taught is very important. Depending upon the subject matter and the characteristics of the learners an appropriate place could be chosen which preferably should represent a real life situation. The place must be adequate, easily accessible and a learning atmosphere comparatively free from noise. He should try to involve as many senses of the learners as possible in an effective learning process. The extension teacher must bear in mind that the flow of teaching in extension is horizontal as he also gains from the livestock owners which is possible by encouraging the livestock owners to participate actively in the learning process.

Purpose and Significance of Livestock Extension Education

Livestock extension involves systematic and organized communication with livestock owners with a view to helping them in such a way that the livestock owners

·         obtain a better insight into their present and future position as livestock owners

·         acquire sufficient knowledge and skills necessary to increase production or reduce cost of production

·         develop positive attitudes of livestock development

·         able to choose feasible and optimum objectives

·         able to identify problems, look for solutions, solve the problems identified

·         evaluate the results within the farming system situation in which they are operating

The subject matter delivered should be directly applicable to the livestock owners, which is necessary for livestock development. This could be accomplished by designing the training programme based on needs of the livestock owners. It is also equally important for the extension agencies to help the development of leadership among the livestock owners. Development of appropriate local leaders helps the extension agencies in several ways. There are no means by which a large number of livestock owners spread throughout the length and breadth of the country can be forced to practices animal husbandry in a specific way. Such attempts usually meet with passive and even at times active form of resistance. The better option could be is to influence their decision making through livestock extension so that their decisions will be to their own and to their society’s advantage. Livestock extension alone is seldom sufficient to increase animal production.

Livestock extension cannot operate in standalone situation as it needs the support of various institutions and several groups of people. In addition to livestock extension, the other elements required for increasing animal production are;

i)                    remunerative market

ii)                  assured water and electricity supply

iii)                local availability and accessibility of inputs such as feeds, medicines, vaccines, technical services and equipments

iv)                roads, transportation and storage facilities

v)                  credit supply

vi)                appropriate policy on animal husbandry.

The domain of knowledge covered by Livestock Extension are;

i)                    technical problems such as selection of livestock, improved breeding, better feeding, housing and management

ii)                  farm economics and organizational problems which include importance of culling of animals, labour management, labour saving equipments (milking machines, meat processing equipments) acquisition of credit and its repayment, farm plans etc. How to reduce cost of production of milk, meat or eggs etc. is forms an important aspect for the livestock owners. ?

iii)                issues pertaining to globalization and WTO regulations

The change must be

i)                    felt by the livestock owners as important

ii)                  significant economically and socially to a relatively large number of people

iii)                related to the primary needs of the society.

People must undergo change because

i)                    it is the people who must make changes in farming, home-making, health, community etc. that contribute to development

ii)                  change in people, educationally, is a pre-requisite to the attainment of other

iii)                changes in a free society

iv)                changes in the mind (Head) and heart of people precede changes in actions (Hands).

Livestock Situation and Challenges for Livestock Extension

1.      Millions of people depend on livestock whether directly or indirectly

2.      Livestock owners spread throughout the country

3.      Resource poor livestock farmers contribute a lot to production of milk, meat, egg, wool etc.

4.      Common property lands are shrinking leading to increased dependency on purchased inputs

5.      Majority of livestock keepers are poor and women

6.      Veterinarian is the most credible source of information on livestock rearing

7.      The market for livestock and livestock products is mostly unorganized

8.      Per capita consumption of milk among the resource poor milk producers is very low

9.      Majority of the poor own few less productive animals

10.  The livestock owners have no control on quantity and quality of production.

This dynamic livestock situation is posing several challenges to livestock extension services. Some of the challenges with which the extension personnel have to cope up with are;

1.      How to reach millions of livestock owners spread in every nook and corner of the country especially those who are thriving in Complex, Diverse and Risk prone (CDR) environment?

2.      How to improve the living standards of the rural livestock owners through livestock rearing especially when the pressure on land is increasing and common property lands are slowly fading out forcing the rural poor to maintain the animals on purchased fodders?

3.      How to sustain the production of livestock products with decreasing area under fodder and increase in the competition for feed resources and decreasing interests of the people in livestock rearing?

4.      How to face the emerging livestock development situation as a sequel to the technological and development interventions?

5.      How to take cognizance of the changes that are taking place in the society which include : Shift from farming to industry; Shift from rural to urban (migration ); Shift from grazing to stall feeding; Shift in focus from social to economic issues.

Target Groups:

Livestock development involves a number of target groups with whom the extension agents need to work with. These groups include;

1.      Livestock owners: All those who own livestock (dairy farmers, sheep and goat keepers, poultry farmers, etc.)

2.      Livestock service providers: Animal Husbandry department personnel, Marketing institutions like Milk Cooperatives, APEDA, Training institutions like KVKs, NGOs, Research / Academic institutions – Veterinary Universities/ Colleges, ICAR animal science institutes, Bankers, Insurance agencies etc.

3.      Input suppliers: Semen banks, feed mixing plants, Pharmaceuticals, vaccine production units, Livestock product processing units, Fodder seed production units, Agro related industries etc.

4.      Policy makers: Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, Secretaries of AH organisations, Senior officials of AH Department, Milk Federations, Researchers, Farmer organisations etc.

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