Introduction

Adult education in agriculture has a close link. How? As we know, agriculture plays pivotal role in the economic as well as social development of the economy of any nation. In the developing countries, agriculture has central importance due to its direct or indirect involvement in running the engine of economy though generation of employment, production of food, providing raw material for non-agriculture businesses etc.

However in the world of changing technological environment in all sectors of economy and especially in agriculture, there has emerged a bottleneck in achieving desired advancement in agriculture sector especially in developing and third world countries. This is the narrow band of education and illiteracy in these countries. The demand for the establishment of efficient and effective adult educational system in agriculture for the rural farming community is the dire need of time.

The Importance of Adult Education in Agriculture

Agriculture extension is often defined as the out of school and non-formal way of educating the adult farmers in a farming community. It is different from ‘formal education’ in numerous ways. First it is usually carried out in open atmosphere. Second mutual trust and respect is key element between the adult farmers are extension officer or agent. Last but not least, it is the primary process through which adult farmers learn the art of doing farming operations in new and innovative manner using latest technology.

Adult education in agriculture has few characteristics. These are as follows;

• It is essentially voluntarily,
• It is demand driven,
• Problem oriented,
• Adult education is for action not just an academic exercise,
• Adult education in agriculture is unique as same level of agricultural art is taught to adult farmers that belong to different formal education level,
• Farm fields are classrooms for the farmer, and;
• It has two dimensions of improving the farmer’s livelihood as wee as socio-economic profile of the economy.

A Bottleneck in Programs of Adult Education in Agriculture

A bottleneck or more precisely a problem that resides in programs related to adult education in agriculture is that most of these programs are male oriented and delivered by male extension agents. This deprives the female adult education component and they get neglected and hence true fruits of the adult education in agriculture are not obtained.  

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