The performance of public agricultural extension systems in developing countries engendered interest in pluralistic concepts of extension involving a variety of service providers. Within the reform agenda, modalities relying on private‐sector providers were perceived as a path to improvement. This paper aims to assess the potential and limitations of such modalities. Public sector organizational and managerial attributes that explain policy making and implementation processes. Recommendations deal with changes in public sector orientations, resources and structures. The areas of focalization of the analysis are vision and strategy, public-private collaboration and policy and managerial capabilities. Accordingly, the redefinition of the role of the public sector should incorporate functions of networking, partnership with the private sector and leverage for supporting innovative initiatives. New mandates and strategies are needed for this redefinition, as well as a more rigorous consideration of complexities and heterogeneities of agriculture, particularly in relation with the rural poor. Ministries of Agriculture, then, should be governed by an impact orientation, cost-effectiveness criteria and reinvigorated in their analytical, operative and innovation capabilities.