224 Governance and Education
usually depends on the activities of several interconnected actors, who may in
fact have different views of what the problem is, and what criteria the solution
should meet. Even in situations where an individual farmer raises a seemingly
individual problem, there are usually more people involved (e.g. other house-
hold members, family, labourers, contractors), who are part of the problem or
its solution. For a male farmer, the cost of pest infestation may be a problem
because it reduces cash income available for socializing in a bar, while his wife
may regard it as a problem because it prevents her from buying school uni-
forms. Thus, the availability of male and female labour for labour intensive
pest management strategies may depend on an agreement on the distribution
of the extra cost incurred. Similarly, the feasibility of adopting a disease resist-
ant crop variety – which also happens to be early ripening – may depend on
the willingness of others to provide labour at an earlier time in the season.As can be seen from these discussions, we have tried to arrive at a mainly descriptive
definition of extension. This is because one cannot hope to contribute to extension
without describing what it entails in practice. At the same time, however, it is
impossible to make practical contributions without a vision of how it can be done
better. Thus, points 3 and 7 are more normative in nature as they indicate what we
feel extension should do, even if we know that change agents often also use non-
communicative strategies to promote change (which contradicts with point 3),
and still regard and organize their work largely as ‘dissemination’ (which is at odds
with point 7). We are aware that the descriptive ingredients of the definition in
particular may raise additional normative issues for the reader, for example on
whether or not we can accept that change agents go against the interests of certain
clients, have hidden agendas, personal goals etc.
Terminology from this point onwards
In the preceding sections we have described how the concept of ‘extension’ has
evolved historically, and emphasized the need for a novel definition. Essentially, we
intend to look at extension as ‘communication for innovation’. From here on we
use the latter term whenever possible, or use the term communicative interven-
tion. Similarly, we minimize the use of the terms ‘extensionist’ and ‘extension
worker’, and – following Van Woerkum et al, 1999 – write of communication
specialists, communication workers or change agents instead.
Different Types of Communication Services and
Strategies
In practice, communication for innovation can take many forms, not just in terms
of the methods and techniques used, but also with regard to the wider intervention
purpose, which again relates closely to the assumed nature of the problematic situa-
tion. Depending on the situation, the problem may, for example, be regarded as ‘a