| Abstract | Prior to the introduction of the Training and Visit System (T&V System), Thailand faced a lot of problems in agricultural extension due to lack of a proper system. Until 1974, when the T&V System was introduced on the recommendation of the World Bank, agricultural extension in Thailand has not been developed . This research attempts to study the way the Training and Visit System (T&V System) worked in order to find out the kind of problems faced in translating the system into practice and to derive some policy implications for the improvement of the National Agricultural Extension Development in Thailand. However, since the extension system does not operate in a controlled laboratory as an experiment in natural science, the information for supporting this kind of study is difficult to gather and the analysis is limited only to the data obtained from documents, personal discussions, questionnaires and researcher's observation. Khon Kaen Province was selected as the study area because the researcher is familiar with the area and the local officers, and because this system has been in operation in this province for more than four years with the normal inputs from the DOAE, thus, analyzing the real implementation of the approach in this area would be reasonable and fit the purpose of the study. However, due to time and budget limitation, only four districts in this province were selected to conduct a field survey . As the T&V System was designed for agricultural information to flow to and from five levels: Subject Matter Specialists, District Agricultural Extension Officers, Extension Agents, Contact Farmers, and Target Farmers, through the process of the Monthly Training, Fortnightly Training and extension agents' Visits to farmers, it is necessary that the respondents of this study are drawn from every level mentioned above. Therefore, the data were gathered from 210 respondents including three SMS , four District Agricul - tural Extension Officers, seventy COF and one hundred farmers. Information was also obtained from reports, logbooks, minutes of meetings and other similar documents. Descriptive as well as statistical methods are used in the analysis of the data. The findings indicate that the training component, especially, the Fortnightly Training, is the main constraint in the operation of the T&V System since, it is not so satisfactory as it was expected to be. There is no specific unit to administer and manage this activity in the DOAE that obviously led to such a poor training programme. And, the limitation in training led to the lack of efficiency in the visits of extension agents to farmers. The extension agents do not have adequate knowledge to recommend new practices to farmers. However, as far as the T&V System has been implemented, its effects both on the structural changes and the changes on the clientele system can be discovered . A lot of changes on the activities and the chain of command are made in the organizational set-up. In addition, the implementation of the system also brought about an increase in the number of extension staff and budget. There are also observable increases in the farmers' production and income. The study also tries to find out the loss of information during the transferring process . As the system is expected to be the channel to convey useful information from the laboratory to the farm, the passing of information through each step has had some handicap, and it is seen that there is loss of information, particularly at farmers' level . From the findings, many problems in the system operation appear to be in need of improvement such as the inadequacy of extension agents' knowledge, unqualified trainers, no Training Division, lack of coordination between research and extension , and lack of follow-up and supervision from superior. Therefore, some possible recommendations are proposed in this study such as development of training courses in order to provide more necessary and relevant knowledge to extension agents, inviting appropriate trainers, establishment of the Training Division to manage the training activities and of joint project to bring together research and extension, using the mass media to support the extension agents' visits, integrating useful information , reduction in extension agents; work load, and revision of the administrative process to make the information flow to farmers more quickly . |