Review Of Extension Research

Environmentally Sustainable Development Studies and Monograph Series No. 17. A 1995 publication from the World Bank, Monitoring Environmental Progress: A Report on Work in Progress, generated great interest in the use of indicators to measure the pace and direction of change in environmentally sustainable development. In particular, the attempts to define what it means to be wealthy or poor by recognizing that a countrys wealth is the combination of various forms of capital--produced, natural, and human resources--led to new thinking on what constitutes wealth and how it might be measured. The current document, Expanding the Measure of Wealth: Indicators of Environmentally Sustainable Development, extends the earlier analysis by highlighting portfolio indicators for tracking a countrys progress toward sustainable development. These include new estimates of national wealth and genuine savings, a detailed analysis of changes in subsidies that have environmental consequences, and progress on the conceptual foundations of social capital. The new estimates reinforce the importance of the natural resource base of all economies as well as the fundamental role of human resources, including both human capital and the more difficult to define concept of social capital.

This paper aims to address the status and challenges of agriculture research and extension and their linkages in Nepal. Agriculture plays a vital role in Nepal’s economy, employment, and livelihoods, contributing nearly 33 percent to gross domestic product, 66 percent to employment, and 50 percent to exports. Despite the government of Nepal’s (GON’s) priority and policy supports for more than two decades, the growth of agriculture has been very slow (less than 3.0 percent), mainly due to inadequate access to demand-driven technologies and extension services and to inputs, credits, markets, and incentives. Dynamic agriculture research and extension systems are instrumental for bringing transformations in agriculture.