An excellent range of extension guides and resources have been developed and housed as a section on Extension within the Knowledge hub of Beef and Lamb New Zealand. Supported by the Red Meat Profit Partnership, they are a great collection of very practical and useful resources.
They provide Extension Best Practice […]
Project management in extension often involves a team of people working together to achieve extension goals. There are some great online tools that can assist with communication, extension planning, document sharing, monitoring, review and archiving amongst team members.
Here is an overview of three key ones:
This is a free service provided […]
Building and maintaining professional and social relationships and networks is a critical element of successful extension programs and the professional development of farmers and agricultural professionals alike. This post will explore what makes for successful networks and some tips on building and maintaining them.
“Relationship building is under-recognised as a fundamental […]
Negotiating for agreed outcomes is a skill that can be learnt. Technical expertise or hard skills, are often what the clients of extension professionals are looking for. However, in modern day extension programs, it is now critical that soft skills, such as being able to effectively negotiate, enable collaboration and […]
Active listening is an important technique, some would say a fundamental skill, that can help extension professionals ensure effective communication.
It is used to make certain they fully understand what their “client” is communicating. It is also important as a tool to help validate what their clients understanding of the matter […]
In this Internet driven information age, Google Analytics is a powerful tool for monitoring, analysing and reporting how users find and then use a website.
Given websites are now an integral component of many extension programs. Google Analytics is very important tool, as it can be used to show:
Where website visitors […]
The priority of this project has been to identify practical proposals to stimulate private sector extension services, particularly to fill current gaps. This webinar provides a great opportunity to hear about the projects key findings, the impacts and economics of the project, the potential options going forward and what the […]
Co-innovation is a systemic approach used to facilitate and accelerate the pace of practice change and innovation. It has been used to tackle the more complex challenges and opportunities that agriculture is facing.
In this approach the problem or opportunity is put at the centre of the whole process, rather than […]
Image source: Valencia College
Action Research is an approach that brings together researchers and end users (theory and practice) to deliver practical outcomes through a process of shared knowledge creation that empowers the end users to undertake practice change.
“Practice change relates to how farmers alter their current practices to improve their […]
This model can be used to help plan an extension program and provide the basis for evaluating it. Using the model, the relationships between the desired outcomes and the activities and inputs required to achieve them, can be worked out and illustrated in a Program Logic graphic.
It can be used […]
