Obstacles to agricultural extension in Romania

Abstract

This study is concerned with addressing the challenges facing the Romanian system of Agricultural Extension. Generally, the extension system of agriculture denotes to the scientific research as well as novel knowledge to the agricultural practices with farmer education. The focus of this study is on the agricultural extension in Romania that is dominated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) which is liable to the extension of institutional building on the community sector. The system of agricultural extension in Romania is distinguished by its connection with ANCA (National Agency for Agricultural Consulting), which is the primary European origin based institutional structure established in 1998 depending on the PHARE RO 9505 01 0 Program. Thus, ANCA was settled with a purpose to start the delivery of the services of agricultural consultancy to the Romanian farmers. The study outlines a set the challenges that have negative impacts on the Romanian agricultural extension that are multi and due to many factors, that are political, social, educational, and others. Among these challenges is the share of the Western European countries in the wage and employment system where most of the wages and benefits go to the Western European employees leaving minimum wages to Romanian employees. Another challenge in Romanian agricultural extension is the lack of training level of the farmers. Labor force in the Romanian agricultural sector has an inadequate level of training in the Alliance report. The third challenge is due to the lack of foreign languages and communication skills that are more important for providing knowledge needs for the interviewed young Romanian farmers. This has affected the Romanian employees’ skills in management, particularly the environment management and technological skills in comparison to Western employees. Despite these challenges, studies have shown that farmers training can be improved by implementing a variety of solutions such as modernization of professional and agricultural education through adapting a professional curriculum,  raising farmers’ awareness of these challenges, defining the farmer's professional status and his / her association with technical education, and providing funds for supporting training programs. Overall, this study has dealt with an essential issue regarding the system of Romanian agricultural extension. The importance of the study may be in identifying the challenges facing the Romanian agricultural extension that might be of value for other specialists in this field even though living in other regions and counties. The study contributes to the knowledge of agriculture through providing practical diagnoses and solutions to the issues and challenges affecting the system of agricultural extension based on the quantitative methodology and statistical tools.