FAMILY FARMING AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE: NEW CHALLENGES FOR RURAL EXTENSION

Abstract

This paper synthesises a critique of the debate which occurred during the National Seminar for Technical Assistance and Rural Extension - new extension for Family Farming, carried out in Brasilia, DF, Brazil, in August 4 and 8. This iniciative sponsored by the representative organizations of the rural workers, extensionists and rural extension state and Federal Government enterprises. This seminar forms part of an ample process for the restructuring of the mission, philosophy and social context of extensionist action. It is obvious that changes in the extensionist system involve the organization itself. How should the public character of extension be maintained without bureaucratization and turing it into a political instrument in the hands of state governments? How should the power of the organizational structure be descentralized without pulverizing and privatizing it? These are some of the challenges facing rural extension today and on which this paper seeks to reflect.