A Study On Development And Reform Of Agricultural Extension System In Beijing

Subject: A Study on Development and Reform of Agricultural Extension System in Beijing. Name: Yuan Wen. Adviser: Professor Wang Dehai. Specialty: Crop Cultivation. Study Direction: Agricultural extension and management. College: College of Humanities and Development. Application date: June,2004.The thesis described the results of the study on agricultural extension system in Beijing carried out by Beijing Municipal Rural Service Commission and mainly analyzed the status, problems and trends of development of agricultural extension system in Beijing including management system, extension organization, extension staff, the financial input and basic facilities with qualitative and quantitative analysis methods. Some recommendations were put forward at end of the paper based on perspectives from farmers and extension workers during the survey and experiences of agricultural extension management learned in domestic and abroad. The study shows that in agricultural extension organization management, there are too many administration organizations over the extension system which made the lower efficiency of extension system; the extension organizations set up within administration area could not meet the needs of agricultural development in regional based and lack of operational mechanism of motivation and responsibility in market orientation. In human resource development, the structure of knowledge, specialty structure and age structure of extension staff were not rational in terms of farmers needs although the staff qualification have been improved and the total number of staff have been reduced according to the requirement. In financial support, the financial support mainly from government and the amount of funds was various from year to year. The funds from government were only able to support the operation of the organization in municipal and county level, the 78% of townships have to rely on their own income generation activities for support of extension activities. The conflict between income generation activities and other extension activities were becoming visible. The extension workers have different views on agricultural extension reform because their own position, and most of farmers have high expectation on government agricultural extension organizations however, the services from the extension staff could not meet farmers' needs. Farmers required high quality services in time and efficiency, even if services by payment.The recommendations on improvement of extension system in Beijing include re-establish the extension organizations based on regional key enterprises distribution; to improve extension methods and induce competition and motivation mechanism in extension management; to increase financial support from government and develop diversified extension organizations including private organizations.