Rural extension models in Latin America: implications for developing territorial public action approaches in Guatemala

Abstract

This article analyzes the evolution of rural extension models in Latin America and their implications for building territorial public action approaches in Guatemala. Based on a structured narrative review of 19 studies published between 2004 and 2024, organized around four analytical axes; technology transfer, community participation, gender, and academia-territory articulation; three predominant models were identified in the regional literature: diffusionist, participatory, and territorial. The analysis draws on epistemologies of the South (De Sousa Santos), critical pedagogy (Freire), and complex thinking (Morin), and reveals a transition toward more horizontal approaches that nonetheless coexists with five persistent structural gaps: epistemological, articulation, sustainability, gender, and academia-territory. As its main contribution, the study proposes a territorial accompaniment model organized around three moments; understanding, proposing, and evaluating; with joint actor planning as the central axis of the process. The article concludes that the effectiveness of rural extension depends on its capacity to articulate actors, integrate diverse knowledges, and operate through a logic of territorial public action, with concrete implications for Guatemala’s National Rural Extension System.