In the beginning, the mandate of KVK was confined only to provide skill based training to the farmers, farm women and rural youth in crop production, horticulture, livestock production, fisheries, home science, farm machinery and implements and other allied vocations such as apiculture, mushroom cultivation etc. Besides, various extension activities such as field demonstration, field days, farmers’ fairs, exhibitions, radio/TV talks, film show, publication of farm leaflets, etc. were also carried out for creating awareness and to disseminate the agricultural technology. With the consolidation of other front-line extension projects of the Council during the Eighth Five Year Plan, such as National Demonstration Project (NDP), Operational Research Project (ORP), Lab to Land Programme (LLP) and All India Coordinated Project on Scheduled Caste/Tribe, the mandate was enlarged and revised to take up on-farm testing, long term vocational training, in service training for grass root extension workers and front-line demonstrations on major cereal, oilseed and pulse crops and other enterprises. The latest revised mandates of KVKs are as follows:

1. To conduct “On farm Testing” for identifying  technologies  in  terms  of location specific sustainable land use systems.

2. To organize frontline demonstrations  on  various  crops to generate production data and feedback information.

3. To organize training  to  update  the  extension  personnel  with  emerging  advances  in agricultural research on regular        basis.

4. To organize short  and  long term vocational  training  courses  in  agriculture  and allied vocations for the farmers and         rural youth with emphasis on “learning by doing” for higher production on farms and generating self employment. 

            The application of technology in the farmers’ field is achieved through conducting of On-farm trial which include technology assessment and refinement. The proven and recommended technologies are then introduced in the system through conducting of frontline demonstrations followed by training programmes to empower the farmers, field extension personnel and rural youths for its adoption. The extension activities such as field day, exhibitions etc are conducted to disseminate the technologies across the system.