Indonesian agriculture is at acrossroads. Supporting the livelihood of millions ofIndonesians, it needs to underpin renewed and robust growthof the economy; and be a key component of theGovernment's poverty alleviation strategy. Thechallenge for the future is to reinvigorate productivitygains among rural producers, and provide the foundation forlong run sustainability of these productivity gains.Productivity gains are key to farmer income growth, and forthis rebuilding the research and extension systems that haveseen a marked deterioration in recent years will becritical. The experience of the Indonesian decentralizationof its extension system has been mixed, with adverse impacton extension through sharp reductions in funding, andremoval of central-level guidance. At the same time, aseries of positive debates and experimentation in managementhave taken place from a shift on top-down to participatoryapproaches, input and technology dissemination todissemination of market and upstream information andtechnology, from centrally managed extension services todecentralized services, and some movement towardprivatization of extension. In this context, an assessmentof the agricultural extension services, as seen through thelens of the impact evaluation of the DecentralizedAgricultural and Forestry Extension Project (DAFEP), wasdeemed to be timely and relevant. This report thus has thefollowing objectives: i) provide an overview of theinstitutional changes in agricultural extension inIndonesia; ii) present the results of the impact evaluationof DAFEP; and iii) discuss lessons learned and emergingissues in the new political and institutional context.
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