Feeding North America Through Agriculture Extension- A Report from North American Agriculture Network (NAAAN)

In the summer of 2021, to develop baseline information for the NAAAN’s activities, a qualitative and comparative overview of the agricultural advisory service systems in Canada, Mexico, and the United States was conducted. The development of this comparative overview became known as the NAAAN Mapping Exercise. The survey reviewed important characteristics of the publicly supported agricultural advisory services in each country and described and compared the institutional landscapes and historical origins; extension approaches; areas of focus; relationship to agricultural research institutions and agricultural education and training institutions; and sources of funding.

As part of the Mapping Exercise, a country-specific survey was developed and carried out by the NAAAN Secretariat and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRISS) at Colorado State University (CSU). The NAAAN Country Survey solicited information, comments, and views from agricultural advisory/extension experts from each of the three countries to learn how publicly supported agricultural extension programs are structured and operated. The survey was sent to more than 500 expert recipients across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Responses were received from 170 participants: 51 from Canada, 64 from Mexico, and 55 from the United States. The full survey and responses are found at the end of this publication. In addition to the country surveys, teams of experts in each country developed reports telling the unique story of the evolution of extension services in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

These reports capture publicly supported agricultural extension efforts from the perspectives of the content experts and demonstrate somewhat contrasting programs in the three North American countries. Much can be learned from the contrasting experiences chronicled in these reports.

Other Publications

Ensuring that rural advisory services are responsive to women: good practices from FAO in Europe and Central Asia

This report builds upon FAO’s work promoting gender mainstreaming in extension and advisory services, cataloguing challenges and suggesting strategies for increasing the gender responsiveness of rural advisory services globally. The purpose of this review is to apply FAO’s accumulated knowledge about gender equality in the context of rural advisory services to assess the situation in the ECA region. The report provides a snapshot of the extent to which gender considerations are currently integrated into RAS in the region and highlights good practices that are in line with FAO’s gender equality strategies. The report concludes with recommendations for FAO, partner organizations and stakeholders in the fields of agricultural extension and rural advisory services, on how to further improve such services to extend their reach to rural women and men who have previously had limited or no access. This process requires moving away from gender‑neutral service provision, which often results in the exclusion of women, towards transformative extension and rural advisory services that challenge unequal gender relations and address underlying discriminatory norms and practices.

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Climate Change and Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services

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