Access to agricultural services

This dossier focuses on enhancing the poorest farmers' access to agricultural services such as research, training, advice and finance.

Services can contribute to strengthening the poor's assets and to sustaining and enhancing their livelihoods. To do so, they need to be accessible, that is (1) available (ready for use when needed), (2) affordable (effective at low costs), and (3) socially inclusive: accessible to the most vulnerable groups in rural areas.

Services need to be demand-driven and locally specific and aim at empowering farmers, building their capacities and involving them in service demand and delivery.

It is essential is that services are considered within their context and their complexity.  Using a systems perspective instead of focusing on technical aspects will ensure that such complexities are better understood. The innovation systems perspective for agricultural services underlines the policy and institutional context including governance of the system, the functional relationships, the services and stakeholders, and their capacities.

This dossier employs the innovation systems perspective to assess the challenges facing agricultural services, and to identify how farmers and service providers have responded to these challenges and what the most likely success factors have been to make these responses effective.