The word "extension" is useful because it brings to mind organized

activities of conveying (extending) technical information to farmers and

others. At the same time, however, the word "extension" also conveys some

erroneous implications and obscures some important distinctions. The word

extension unfortunately implies that generating knowledge (research) is a

very different activity from communicating information. In fact, as will be

discussed below, the communication function is integrally related to knowledge

creation, as it shapes both the generation and evaluation of hypotheses.

Thinking of integrated "learning systems," in which scientists and farmers

help each other to learn, is more useful than thinking of separate "research"

and "extension" systems.

 The word "extension" also implies that the messages to be com-

municated are selected by one set of actors, and are then conveyed to

another set of people. The audience is primarily a passive recipient, whose

main option is to accept or reject the message. In fact, however, there




















 A detailed semantic analysis of the term extension is available
in Paulo Freire, "Extension or Communicating" in Education for Critical
Consciousness (New York: Seaberg Press, 1973), pp. 93-97.