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Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services

Farming field in the Sahel region of Mali
Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services

Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services (MEAS), a $9.5M AgReach project funded by USAID, was active from 2010-2016. Overall, the MEAS project contributed to significant impacts on extension systems, organizations, individual actors, and farmers while increasing the prominence of extension on the international agricultural development and food security agenda.

Over 60 institutions and programs are using MEAS training modules and manuals and MEAS materials have been accessed online on over 270,000 times. MEAS focused its efforts on the organizations that served them through the analysis, design, evaluation, and reform of rural extension and advisory services, collaborating with public systems/governments, donor funded projects, NGOs, public sector entities, farmers’ unions, and civil society organizations. In total, the MEAS project used this approach to reach over 11 million farmers.

Though no longer active as a project, related and subsequent AgReach projects have built off of MEAS's foundations. All MEAS publications, extension tools, learning modules, and the rest of the resource library are available for public use at meas.illinois.edu.

The publications below represent a sampling of the MEAS library, click to find more:

Training Material

  • Climate change adaptation guides
  • Region-specific field extension manuals
  • SMART Skills training modules

Technical Notes

  • Series on teaching and learning for extension practitioners
  • Farmer-to-farmer extension
  • Designing ICT-supported extension

Academic and Discussion Papers

  • Social factors in ICT use in extension
  • Designing EAS to reduce post-harvest loss
  • Reducing the gender gap in EAS
  • ICT in extension and advisory services
  • Linking farmers to market M&E in extension

Evaluations

  • Farmer-to-farmer extension approaches
  • Public-private extension collaborations

Case Studies

  • Small farm resource centers
  • Reaching rural women
  • Human resource development in EAS
  • Posts
  • About us
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AgReach logo

Library of resources from the Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services (MEAS) project

The MEAS project contributed to significant impacts on ag extension systems. All MEAS publications, tools, learning modules, and the rest of the resource library are available for public use.

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Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services

Jul 31, 2017
Agricultural Productivity Climate and Natural Resources Education and Extension Food Safety Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Nutrition
Farmers in India

How Do You Approach Working with Farmer Groups and Cooperatives?

Boiling down how Land O’Lakes, MEAS, World Vision and World Cocoa Foundation approach working with farmer groups/cooperatives.

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Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services

Jun 16, 2016
Markets and Trade Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
standing in a circle

Questions in New Methods of Extension Answered

We want to raise farmer incomes, improve nutrition knowledge and practices in families, and make sure smallholders are eating enough quality food.

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Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services

Mar 31, 2016
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
Climate Change image
icn-agrilinks-event Agrilinks Event

Agriculture Extension and Advisory Services under the New Normal of Climate Change

Feb 20, 2013 Ronald Reagan Building 1300 Pennsylvania Ave, Public Information Center (Room M17/M18) Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Since the domestication of crops and emergence of sedentary societies, our species has never faced a more serious challenge than that which we will confront in adapting to climate change...

Climate and Natural Resources Education and Extension Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
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Our Work

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Extension systems in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Central America need to undergo significant change if they are to effectively serve the food security and economic development needs of resource-poor men and women farmers. New approaches must draw on full breadth of resources in public, private and civil society organizations and utilized available advanced information and communications technologies. MEAS is a Center of Excellence that seeks to promote and support such endeavors.

The MEAS project is made up of three components expected to benefit a wide audience of users:

1 TEACH - Disseminating Modern Approaches to Extension through user-friendly materials for dissemination and training programs that promote new strategies and approaches to rural extension and advisory service delivery. Click here for a brochure on this component.

2 LEARN - Documenting Lessons Learned and Good Practice through success stories, case studies, evaluations, pilot projects, and action research.

3 APPLY - Designing Modern Extension and Advisory Services Program through assistance to selected host country organizations — public and private — for the analysis, design, evaluation and reform of rural extension and advisory services.

Who We Are

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The MEAS project is funded through a USAID Cooperative Agreement Leader with Associates (LWA, 10/2010 to 9/2015).

Consortium Partners

  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (ILLINOIS, Lead)
  • Michigan State University (MSU)
  • University of Florida (UF)
  • University of California Davis (UC Davis) 
  • Cornell University (CORNELL)
  • North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University’s School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (NCAT),
  • Catholic Relief Services (CRS) 
  • Cultural Practice (CP), LLC
  • Winrock International (WI)
  • Sasakawa Africa Fund for Extension Education (SAFE)
  • Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) with its partner, the Global 2000 program of the Carter Center (SG 2000)

Associate Partners

  • The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) 
  • Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

Work With Us

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In MEAS, we emphasize participatory approaches and collaborative development work with public and private commercial as well as non for profit extension and advisory service providers in developing countries together with other donors and a broad range of practitioners. We are also open to working faculty and staff from universities that are not formal partners of the MEAS consortium. 

For the current fiscal year (2012/2013) we are not able to fund any additional collaborations but welcome your inquiries about future collaboration. Simply send an email to Andrea Bohn, [email protected](link sends e-mail)

MEAS has been collaborating with the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS), development projects, farmer organizations (like Federacion National de Cafeteros in Colombia), research institutions, independent consultants, non-governmental organizations like ECHO, social entrepreneurs like BIID (Bangladesh), universities (like Makarere in Uganda and Sokoine in Tanzania) and various USAID missions (Bangladesh, Egypt, Georgia, Ghana, Indonesia, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Rwanda, Tajikistan).

Together we are conducting assessments of the pluralistic extension landscape in various countries, do case studies, carry out evaluations, conduct pilot action research, and offer training programs.

More information is available:

  • Country assessments: http://www.meas-extension.org/meas-offers/country_studies
  • Case studies: http://www.meas-extension.org/meas-offers/case-studies
  • Evaluations: http://www.meas-extension.org/meas-offers/program-evaluation
  • Pilot action research: http://www.meas-extension.org/meas-offers/pilot-projects
  • Training: http://www.meas-extension.org/meas-offers/training
  • Workshops and seminars: http://www.meas-extension.org/workshops
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