Dear Peyman. Before joining academic community I have spent 20 of my working experience at the Macedonian National Extension Service. Being witness to all possible transformations, by many donors and projects, this is to what I am sticking while nowadays I talk to some of our students. First, do your homework and perform a non-biased analysis of your resources (academic community and their attitude towards rural population, research institutions, level of decentralization of your society, municipality's interest for rural development, farmers' status, any NGO or Farmers' Associations, economic capabilities, input suppliers....). Then, try to avoid overlapping areas between different stakeholders, for the sake of saving money, time and obtaining best possible results. Thirdly, respect the customs of your target group (perhaps, this could be the most important part). As we have passed numerous intentions to privatize extension, after many attempts the extension service is still heavily centralized, with little connection to the rural advisory service, sticking only to the issues of agricultural extension. I bet you'd agree that this is not good, but it is as it is. 

Let me summarize by saying that the "one size fits all" approach is abandoned for many years by giving way to the "best-fit" model. But I can bet you're already familiar with this. Just try to identify the stakeholders, then identify their interest and orientation, economic capabilities (read financial status), community leaders, and do not forget the most important group - young farmers. Finally, in case you have donors, do not stick to their agenda as they usually tend to have their financial resources by applying to some calls for projects in which they have listed the target goals, target groups, indicators...which they need to reach if they would like to successfully close the project. Their interest (regardless of their good intentions to assist) not necessarily reflects the needs of your population. 

Sorry if you find this attempt as too long to be read.

Regards.

Dear Vasko!

Thank you very much because of very comprehensive answer and sharing your knowledge and 20 years experiences. This is my pleasure to be familiar with a real field and extension man! I 100% agree with your opinion regarding agricultural extension model. I am sure you talked about  pluralistic approach in extension services. In my country we are applying this approach and we should utilize different possibilities according to exigencies. Know a days we are experiencing a radical change in our extension system and I would like to know more about the organizational chart of agricultural extension administration in different countries if you have any cases please let me know. Of course privatization is very important but in those countries  which have many small farmers it couldn't be the best solution. In this situation we should utilize the potentials of privet sector and making balance between public sector and private sector and divide the responsibilities and roles among different stakeholders. Finally I would like to know is there any agricultural extension education department in University of Stip? 

Thanks again and all the best.    

Dear Peyman. I am attaching the latest organizational structure of the Macedonian  National Extension Agency. It's an extract from my PhD study. Please do not find yourself confused with Cyrillic letters as in each text box there is an English translation. I have no difficulties with privatization of extension service, but the question is, can the users support that robust organization. In our case, Macedonia, in which average farms0size is 2.5 ha it is not possible. Such privatization would only doom the current system. But, what could be done is to transfer responsibility from the HQ to the Regional centers and to include Offices of Regional Development into management structure. At this moment, our extension service recognizes only the Ministry as main client, which is...wrong. Despite farmer representative being present at Management board they have very little influence over prioritization issues of budgeting. Best case scenario: Decentralize the management to regional level, Include Local Municipalities and Offices of Regional Development into planning process, Start listening what farmers feel they need, Improve human resources of the advisers...and many many more, which might be irrelevant to your case.

Regards,

Vasko