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Rural extension is a fundamental tool for agricultural development and food security. In consequence, it is clear that the quality of the extension services provided by the government to family farmers is fundamental. Nonetheless, to date there is no agreement about what it means that extension services are ‘of quality’ and how to measure such quality. Looking to contribute to these topics, in this paper I present the results of a research aimed at defining what quality of extension services means in the Paraguayan context and at participatively constructing quality standards for the Directorate of Agricultural Extension [Dirección de Extensión Agraria] of the Ministry of Agriculture and Husbandry of Paraguay. In order to reach these objectives, literature review, interviews with extensionists and authorities of the Ministry, and also focus groups were conducted. A total of seven key factors for quality management of rural extension and of 12 quality standards were validated during a participatory workshop with rural extensionists and authorities of the Directorate of Agricultural Extension. Among the key factors, availability of operational resources, educational level of human resources, level of salaries, administrative decentralization and institutional learning were highlighted. Among the quality standardsthe use of participatory methodologies, a territorial approach, interdisciplinary work, horizontal articulation between rural extensionists and researchers and political neutrality were also pointed out. In brief, this paper contributes to current literature on rural development by proposing theoretical guidelines to think about qualityin the context of rural extension, as well as a participatory methodology to build standards. Key words: Agricultural extension, public policy, Paraguay, quality management, rural development, standards
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