Altitude extension: the differential agro-ecology for shaping extension strategy

The onset and growth of extension strategy has so far been in a response to the socio-economic milieu across the World. Extension education, by becoming both system and function for technology socialization, can’t go without geographical references. With a change of altitude and slope, the panorama of biology and sociology keeps transforming. What is happening since past and till today is a kind of blanket extension recommendations is being made to cover all geographical variations along and across the slope or terrains in a given hill ecosystem. The entire slice of the research in Manipur, a small state in North East India has divided the terrain into high, medium and low altitude in three selected districts to elucidate the altitude specific factors impacting on the crop stands, yield behavior, attitudinal behavior, technological options and market responses etc. With this innovative approach, Altitude Extension, the first of its kind in extension domain, has attempted to include the variations along with the altitude of a hill ecosystem in designing the extension approach. The altitude extension thus will add a new dimension of hill development by encompassing variations with altitudes in the livelihood, culture, biodiversities what we may term, as the Altitude Extension.