Identifying the Components and Imperatives of the Pluralistic Agricultural Extension System in Iran

The agricultural extension system has always needed transformation and structural adjustment from different dimensions; In order to achieve this goal, some reformative institutional approaches such as pluralism have been proposed. Therefore, the purpose of present mixed (qualitative-quantitative) study was to identify the components and imperatives of the pluralistic agricultural extension system in Iran which was performed using Delphi technique. The panel members included 20 people in the first round and 11 people in the second round who were selected purposefully based on their education level, research records, and having sufficient experience in the field of pluralistic agriculture extension. In order to analyze the data using SPSS software, statistical values including mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, and Kendall's correlation coefficient were calculated. After doing two rounds of the Delphi technique, 10 main components for a pluralistic agricultural extension system were identified that were including organizational structure, information sources, agricultural extension agents, financial resources, policies and strategies, communication methods and channels, audiences, organizational and management methods, content and topics, and approaches. Also, the implementation of the Delphi technique in the second round led to the identification of 24 different imperatives for the pluralistic agriculture extension system in Iran, which were identified using the qualitative content analysis technique with a summarization approach. Based on the conceptual fit and semantic proximity of the concepts, these imperatives were categorized into 10 general groups including attention to extensional approaches, development of facilities and support services, structural imperatives, reduction of government tenure, legal imperatives, comprehensive coverage of groups and audiences, persistent monitoring and evaluation, networking and coordination between actors, capacity building, and development of professional skills and targeted content creation for extensional programs. In general, paying attention to the components and imperatives identified in this research can in practice be a suitable guide for designing a desirable model of pluralist agriculture extension system and implementing such a system in the country.