This two-volume set of soft-cover journals, one published in 1996 and one in 1998, addresses a wide range of issues, strategies, and lessons learned from applying agricultural training, education, extension, and communication to the development of human resources to achieve food security. The publications focus on formal and non-formal education and institutional capacity-building efforts that seek to provide people with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for sustainable management and production of natural resources. The publisher, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, holds that improving human resources is especially important in low-income, food-deficit countries, where the shortage of trained human capital limits development. Parts of the second volume focus on women, who play a critical role in food production in many countries but often lack access to extension services.

The table of contents of the first volume (1995-1996, or Number 54) includes:

• Introduction
• Human resources development in agriculture: developing country issues
• A learning approach to sustainable agriculture and rural development: reflections from Hawkesbury (by R. Bawden)
• Distance education for environmental management at Wye College (by M. Redclift and P. Smith)
• Education and training for environmental issues in agriculture in Asia (by S.M. Yassin)
• Integrating population issues into college curricula in Malawi (by V. Sigman)
• Population education through agricultural extension service in Malawi (by S. J. Muyaya)
• Integrating science and traditional knowledge to achieve sustainable development in Morocco (by M.L. Firdawcy)
• Participatory training: using critical reflection on experience in agricultural extension training (by A. Rogers)
• Gender and environment: some methods for extension specialists (by A. Spring)
• Group-based extension progammes in Java to strengthen natural resource conservation activities (by A.S. Martaamidjaja and M. Rikhana)
• Environmental and sustainable development themes in agricultural extension programmes: a review of FAO case-studies (by L. Van Crowder)

The table of contents of the second volume (1997-1998, or Number 55) includes:

• Participatory curriculum development for agricultural education and training: experiences from Viet Nam and South Africa (by P. Taylor)
• From margin to mainstream: revitalization of agricultural extension curricula in universities and colleges in sub-Saharan Africa (by M.M. Zinnah, R.E. Steele, and D.M. Mattocks)
• Listening to farmers: communication for participation and change in Latin America (by S. Balit)
• A microbasin approach to extension and training: experiences in Latin America (by E. Zaffaroni)
• Developing sustainable agricultural technologies with rural women in Jamaica: a participatory media approach (by M. Protz)
• Female agricultural extension agents in El Salvador and Honduras: do they have an impact? (by G.A. Truitt)
• How gender analysis can facilitate client-oriented extension planning: a case from Ethiopia (by R.B. Percy)
• Institutional and policy reform of rural extension in China during the transition towards a market economy (L. Yonggong)
• Preparing and upgrading the extension workforce: a comparative analysis of higher agricultural education in Honduras, Malaysia, Nigeria and Peru (by W.M. Rivera)
• Environmental education training: best practices and lessons learned from experiences in six Asian countries (by R. Adhikarya)
• Biological diversity in agro-ecosystems: teaching and learning for decision-making (by R. van Haarlem)
• Village Concept Projects in Ghana: international students helping to improve rural living conditions (by G. Andrian)
• Professional research and knowledge bases for non-formal rural youth programmes (by M.K. Munson)