Extension is too often merely seen as a vehicle for spreading scientific and technical innovations and technology transfer. Dissemination of knowledge is not a one-way path from scientists to farmers. Farmers’ own knowledge play crucial role in analysing, catalysing and application of knowledge. There is rarely a “one size fits all” solution to address the mix of technical, economic, commercial, social and environmental aspects of diverse farming systems. Now farmers are more interested to have information on market, credit facilities and consumer demand in addition to appropriate technology related to fast transmission to the clientele. Farmers’ empowerment is crucial to make them able to analyse the constraints, seek out the solutions thereon and make choices.

The essence of agricultural extension is to facilitate interplay and nurture synergies within a total information system involving agricultural research and education. By building producers’ capacity to take individual and collective initiatives, facilitation makes available technical solutions more relevant to farmers’ constraints in the short-term and in the long term provides a framework for ongoing innovation.

Extension system in India has undergone major changes since the late 1990s in governance structure, capacity, organization and management including advisory methods. The changes involve the decentralization of extension services at local level, adoption of pluralistic modes, promoting the participatory extension approaches, training of farmers to express their demands and capacity. The reform initiatives for desire improvements in agricultural productivity for demand-driven in order to meet the need specific, purpose-specific and target-specific extension system. However, there is no single optimal model best suited for all situations, Therefore ultimate choice of the extension approach depends : (1) the policy environment, (2) the capacity of potential service providers, (3) the type of farming systems and the market access for farm households, and (4) the involvement of the local communities and their ability to cooperate. Different agricultural extension models can work well for different sets of situations. To this end, the recent initiatives focus for creating a demand driven, broad-based and holistic agricultural extension system. This encompasses the design and introduction of a multitude of integrated approaches on the demand side, enable users to voice their needs and hold service providers accountable on the supply side. In order to address such pertinent issues, we need to develop innovative and contemporary extension models, approaches, methods which can fit in diverse agri-rural environment and help in agricultural development and ensure livelihood security of the country. Keeping in view the above considerations, the themes of the 6th National Extension Education Congress 2011 have been framed as below:

"Emerging Models of Technology Application for Agri-rural Development"
Major Themes and Sub-Themes
A. Climate Change: Ground Realities

• Effect on crop, livestock and fisheries production
• Change in cropping and farming systems
• Natural resource management
• Integrated approach

B. Emerging Extension Models: Experiences

• Innovative technology development models
• Public private interventions
• Farm level technology dissemination models
• Micro credit
• Market-led extension

C. ICT Enabled Models of Technology Dissemination

• Use of ICT for improving livelihood
• Efficiency and effectiveness of networking
• Case studies on successful models

D. Gender Perspective in Agri-rural Development

• Farm women centred technology dissemination models
• Perspective change in role of women in farm and non farm sectors

E. Agricultural Policies and Support System

• Entrepreneurship development for socio-economic transformation
• Policy influence on technology application
• Pricing policy for production and value added product
• Harnessing the new world economic regime: Experiences