Abstract
Research, extension and farmers are three main pillars of agriculture system and their effectiveness largely
depends on strong linkage among each other. However, the existing research-extension-farmer relationship has
not been effective in many parts of the developing world. The linkage problems thus cause disruptions in
technology flow and lead to low adoption rates, increased time lags between development and adoption of new
technology, reduced efficiency in the use of resources, unnecessary competition and duplication of efforts, and
increased cost of agricultural research and extension activities. The present paper aims to asses the effect of
decentralization on linkage among research, extension and farming community. The population of the study
consisted of change agents and their supervisory staff working in Faisalabad district. The data were collected by
using “survey” method. Majority (66.86%) of the respondents perceived the linkages between research and
extension between average and strong categories. Majority (58.89%) of the respondents indicated under
decentralized system that the extension had strong linkage with farming community. About one-fourth
respondents were of the view that decentralized extension had no effect while 17.17% indicated negative effect of
decentralization on linkage between research and extension. A good number (37.42%) of the respondents
indicated no effect of decentralization on linkages between research and farming community. A majority (76.07%)
of the respondents pointed out that the flow of information from extension to farming community has improved
due to decentralization.
