African Journal of Agricultural Research Vol. 6(14), pp. 3298-3304, 18 July, 2011 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJAR DOI: 10.5897/AJAR11.077 ISSN 1991-637X ©2011 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper What changed in public extension in the last decade? The case of Manisa province in Turkey Murat Boyaci* and Ozlem Yildiz Department of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Faculty, Ege University, 35100 Bornova, Izmir Turkey. Accepted 11 May, 2011 In this study, the changes in public extension services were examined through the data of two conducting researches in Manisa province of Turkey in different years as 1996 and 2007. Turkish extension service is influenced by the general, and training-visit approaches which were employed in the past few decades. These approaches are mainly directed to conventional production and yield increases, by using a top-down process that gives little place for human resources development and sustainable agriculture. These general situations clearly seen in Manisa province, one of the first extension organizations had been established in Turkey in 1943. In the study, some personnel characteristics, time allocated to extension, target groups and objectives, and problems encountered in extension were compared in terms of both periods in Manisa. Key words: Agricultural extension, extension in Turkey, agricultural technology transfer. INTRODUCTION During the 20 th century most public extension systems in developing countries were centrally funded and top down in structure. In this period, the primary focus was on national food security and, as green revolution technologies became available, extension systems had a positive impact on agricultural productivity by helping transfer these technologies. Extension also has an important role in the international trade competition in today’s knowledge based globe (Swanson, 2008; Van der Bor et al., 1995; Csaki, 1999). Despite, extension is in a unique position to sit at the center of a community information network and facilitate collective action through partnership creation (Patton, 1986), most public extension systems are still top-down in structure, inadequately funded and have done little or nothing to keep and upgrade their extension staff (Swanson, 2008). The recent developments encourage the local participation, decentralization; client oriented, and digitalized structures in extension services. Agriculture takes a considerable part in Turkish economy with a 9% share in GNP, 29.5% share in employment, and 4.25% share in the export value (http://www.tuik.gov.tr). Although historical roots of *Corresponding author. E-mail: murat.boyaci@ege.edu.tr. Tel: +902323112745. Fax: +902323881862. agricultural services go back to middle 1800’s institutionalized extension efforts seen after the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 (Anonymous, 1938). Public extension activities in Turkey are dominated and conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) with its structure spread in provinces as 81 dependent directorates and 802 county directorates. The structure of the MARA, which was reshaped in 1991, serves about 7,000,000 farmers with 6,965 agricultural engineers, 2,441 veterinarians, 3,828 agricultural and 1,819 veterinarian technicians, and 908 home economists (http://www.tarim.gov.tr). The public agricul- tural extension service is expected to act as a central mechanism in the rural development process. In this study, the changes in public extension are examined by taking a decade earlier and later period for setting the new directions of extension. The research area, Manisa Province has one of the oldest extension organization had been established in Turkey. According to agricultural production value the province has third biggest value in Turkey There are 77.243 farmer families in the province, dealing with agricultural production on 515.193 ha and producing about 90% of raisin, 21% of tobaccos, 14% of table grapes, 13% of olives, 10% of poultry meats, and 9% of cherries in Turkey. First attempts on ecological production in Turkey were also seen in Manisa Province (http://www.manisatarim.gov .tr/default.asp?item=menu &id=1001).