Communicating Research Results to Farmers—a Key Issue for Sustainability

If Asia, aquaculture has been primarily oriented towards meeting local food requirements, creating gainful employment opportunities and supplementing family income. As a result, the majority of the sectoral contributors are small farmers. Inputs from research institutions and intra-regional exchange of information have accelerated the pace of development of Asian aquaculture. Large-scale commercialisation of aquaculture activities is a recent development in Asia that has been influenced by the price structure and increasing demand for high-value aquaculture products, especially shrimp. Governments in the region have also given high priority to the development of aquaculture because this sector is a major source of foreign exchange earnings through export of high-value products like shrimp. Aquaculture extension services are recognised as the vital link between researchers and primary producers. The governments of countries within the region have worked diligently to expand and improve the network of field staff available to assist the aquaculture industries. In almost every instance, federal governments provide the framework for extension services. The main objective of these is to transfer appropriate technology packages to farmers to help them raise farming efficiency, production and profit. However, aquaculture extension services did not get parity with the growth of the sector and as a result the system functions under a limiting environment. Unlike agriculture, hardly any research was undertaken to develop effective and appropriate extension methodologies, approaches, training materials and tools. Sustainability issues are yet to be incorporated in the extension delivery system.