¿Qué tipos de métodos de extensión prefieren y usan los extensionistas rurales? Comparación internacional y construcción de una tipología de acuerdo a sus métodos

In contrast to the wide corpus of literature aimed at discussing different extension approaches or philosophies, there is scarce interest in the analysis of methods of rural extension. This quantitative study analyzes the types of rural extension methods that rural extension agents from nine countries prefer and use, and explores the relationship between the types of methods and extension agents’ sociodemographic characteristics. Group methods are the most preferred and used, followed by individual ones. Interinstitutional coordination and mass media methods occupy third and fourth place respectively, in terms of preference and use. An important divergence between preferred and most used methods was identified. Results show the existence of three types of extension agents in terms of their extension methods, one focusing on individual and group work with farmers, and the other two which prioritize or relegate individual or group methods (depending on the case) and complement them with inter-institutional coordination ones.

与现有大量探讨各类推广路径与推广理念的文献相比，针对乡村推广（rural extension）方法的分析研究却相对匮乏。本定量研究分析了来自9个国家的乡村推广专员所偏好并实际应用的乡村推广方法类型，并探究了方法类型与推广专员社会人口统计学特征之间的关联。团体类推广方法是最受偏好且应用最广泛的，其次为个体类推广方法。就偏好程度与使用频率而言，机构间协作方法与大众传媒方法分别位居第三、第四位。研究发现，推广专员的偏好方法与实际最常用的方法之间存在显著差异。研究结果显示，依据推广专员所采用的推广方法类型，可将其划分为三类：第一类专注于与农户开展个体及团体合作；另外两类则分别优先采用或弱化个体/团体类方法（视具体场景而定），并辅以机构间协作方法作为补充。