Capacity building for value chain development: A multimethod study of culturally responsive agricultural extension in Papua New Guinea

In the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, agricultural extension is one of the few adult education channels available to rural farmers. The potential of agricultural extension to close capacity gaps and progress livelihoods has seen extension become a central tenet of international development projects targeting rural development. Although well established as an adult education channel in rural areas, agricultural extension organisations in Papua New Guinea regularly face deficits in funding and capacities. These deficits limit an organisation’s ability to align extension content with the socio-cultural context familiar to farmers. The isolation of content from context subjugates local knowledge and limits the capacity building potential of extension. Using a multimethod approach, this PhD project explored methods to improve extension outcomes by humanising, or, more explicitly, by incorporating the socio-cultural components of knowledge systems into extension content and approaches. Specifically, this PhD project explored how the socio-cultural components of knowledge systems can be incorporated into agricultural extension in Papua New Guinea. The findings conceptualise agricultural extension as centred around two fundamental domains: connecting people and exchanging knowledge. It is within these two domains that interventions can be targeted to incorporate the socio-cultural components of knowledge systems. Connecting people, guided by the socio-cultural components of knowledge systems, meant designing extension interventions which deliberately included all community members in a transparent way and dedicating time to individual and group reflection to assimilate new knowledge. Exchanging knowledge, guided by the sociocultural components of knowledge systems, meant placing new content within the knowledge systems familiar to farmers using evidence-informed adult learning theories, local knowledge, and an emerging perspective of community membership known as the space between. By connecting people and exchanging knowledge in ways that adhered to and incorporated the socio-cultural components of knowledge systems, diverse forms of social capital were fostered between formerly disparate communities, and the social networks that developed between participants were an important driver of learning post-extension interventions. The findings from this PhD project provide valuable insight into the future of extension in Papua New Guinea, and the strategies identified can inform and potentially improve the design of agricultural extension interventions. Although focused on Papua New Guinea, the findings from this project will have further relevance to extension interventions in other low- and middle-income countries.