Identification of Challenges and Requirements of the Agricultural Extension and Pathology of the Current Status of the New Agricultural Extension System of Iran

Iran’s agricultural extension system, as one of the main component of agricultural development, has faced different challenges during the past two decades, which has caused the system to be criticized by the authorities, employers and villagers. In order to solve the problems of this system, it was proposed to reform the structure of the agricultural extension system in the framework of a new extension approach with the aim of revitalizing extension services and appropriate transfer of research and technology. However, after about four years from the implementation of this project, the results of various studies indicate a large gap between the current situation and the desired situation. Hence, the purpose of this research is to identify the main challenges and requirements of the Iranian agricultural extension and the pathology of the new agricultural extension system, which has been carried out in two stages using a qualitative approach. The first phase, using the Delphi technique, identifies the challenges and requirements of the Iranian agricultural extension system. The statistical population of this stage consists of faculty members of the field of agricultural extension in all over the country (N1= 138), experts of agricultural extension of cities and experts in the area in five provinces of Mazandaran, Fars, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad, Esfahan and Alborz (N2= 1300). Also, managers and experts of the agricultural research organization at the headquarters of the organization (N3= 10) have been selected using a purposeful sampling method. The results of this phase identified 33 main challenges in the form of 6 categories and 17 requirements for the agricultural extension system. The second stage of the research was carried out using the phenomenological method. At this stage, the experience of the experts of the system of extension on the achievements of the new system and the challenges facing this system was evaluated. The results of this phase revealed that this system was successful in knowledge management, communication and staff empowerment, but was weak in the fields of infrastructure and human resources.