Strategies for Improvement of Agricultural Extension New Approach of Iran

Agricultural extension approach of Iran needs to be changed in order to achieve agricultural rural development; therefore, the Agricultural Extension New Approach (AENA) was implemented in some provinces of the country since 2015. Future threats and opportunities should be considered in agricultural policies in order to provide better services by agricultural extension approach. Assessment of AENA of Iran in five provinces of Fars, Kermanshah, Ardabil, Golestan and West Azerbaijan as the pioneers in implementing of this new approach was the main purpose of this study. This qualitative research extracted strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of AENA using SWOT as well as weighting and ranking of them by agricultural extension and education experts. Afterwards, the study provides appropriate strategies by confluence of SWOT in order to the AENA improvement. According to the results, defensive strategy was the first priority of agricultural extension policymakers in terms of the three domains of AENA including agricultural area zoning, equipment and organizing of service centers as well as knowledge management. Thus, it tries to present appropriate strategies for weaknesses decrease and threats elimination.