Agricultural extension or ‘farmer advisory services’ can play a key role in enabling smallholder farmers to become more productive and to participate more profitably in agricultural markets and value chains. To achieve that goal, farmer advisory services must be reoriented and restructured. Realizing farmers’ development aspirations – and addressing the social, economic and logistical constraints in reaching them – will require that participatory, local decision-making and capacity building approaches become a basic reference point for extension systems. The traditional extension worldview, in which production solutions identified by research scientists and other technical experts are promoted to farmers, should be reformulated. In particular, advisory services must do a better job of listening to and learning from poor farmers, most of whom are women, and working with them to solve problems and improve their livelihoods.