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Aquaculture extension and training of small scale farm- challenge and opportunitiesYuan DerunNetwork of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific, Suraswadi Building,Department of Fisheries, Kasetsart University CampusBangkok 10900, ThailandAbstractSmall-scale farming in developing countries is characterized by its complex and often harsh farming environment,limited farming resources, and highly personalized and diverse farming systems. Small-scale farmers are oftensocio-economically marginalized with little financial capacity and self motivation to accept and adopt newtechnology. These factors together impose a serious challenge to success of aquaculture extension and smallscalefarmers’ training. The problem is further aggravated with imperfect extension systems and lack of skillfulextension agents. To make extension and farmers’ training effective, extension approaches with betterparticipation from farmers should be promoted and training capacity strengthened at both institutional andindividual level. Extension agents should be well trained in both aquaculture technology and extension/trainingmethods.Extension SystemThe term “Extension Education” was first introduced in Britain in 1873 by Cambridge University then spread toUnited States of America attached as part of educational institutes in 1914 (Jones and Garforth, 1997). Extensioneducation is different from the conventional educational institution; it is non-formal without regular classes, grades,degrees, or diplomas. The name “extension education”, “extension work”, or “extension” has come to be acceptedgenerally to mean non-formal education of the rural population no matter what agency or institution administers it.Extension in aquaculture may be defined as an organized service and a system which assists people inaquaculture, through educational procedures, to improve aquaculture techniques, increase production efficiencyand farmers’ income, and improve their socio-economic conditions. Training is the most important measure usedin extension for information dissemination.Traditionally, the extension service has been given the task of acting as an intermediary between researchers andthe farming community (Figure 1). The extension agent is supposed to go out to the farm, collect information aboutboth perceived and unperceived needs of farmers, and transmit it to scientists. The scientists are then supposedto design appropriate solutions and give them to extension agents who are supposed to pass them along to thefarmers (Elwell 1992; MacKay 1992).In the traditional view depicted in Figure 1, extension is clearly the key to information flow both to and fromresearchers and farmers. Extension agents are expected to be half scientist and half farmer, able to pick up andunderstand a technical journal article, put it into the specific context of his or her target community, and thencommunicate the information effectively to practical-minded farmers who have limited formal education. There isno direct linkage between scientists and farmers and the success of such an extension model is largely dependenton cooperation between research and extension, and communication ability of extension agents.43