Agricultural Extension Policy Research Articles

Issues for Agricultural Extension Policy: Structures and Institutional Arrangement

This paper examined issues pertaining to structures and institutional arrangement for agricultural extension policy. It highlighted the broad objectives of the new policy thrust in agriculture in Nigeria, and identified sub-policies that were expected to facilitate growth of the agricultural sector of the economy. Agricultural extension, among others, was identified as an integral part of the agricultural policy. Transfer of agricultural information and innovations was highlighted as the prime responsibility of agricultural extension. It was observed that extension has not lived up to this responsibility due to a number of reasons, principal among which is inadequate funding among others. The Agricultural Development Programmed (ADP) was identified as the institutional agency responsible for the transfer of agricultural information and innovations to farmers. The ADP was observed to operate the Unified Agricultural Extension System (UAES) using the Training and Visit (T&V) extension system. In order to ensure effectiveness in the discharge of its mandate to its clientele, the extension agency needed to maintain working linkages with research organsations/institutions. About 15 national agricultural research institutes, which are mainly concerned with technology (innovation/ knowledge) creation/development, were identified. Also three universities of agricultures as well as faculties of the conventional universities in the country were identified. The need to secure a stable and sustained source of financing agricultural extension was identified as the most difficult and challenging policy issue facing the agricultural extension services in Nigeria today. It was recommended that a legal legislative action be put in place, which would, among other things, define the responsibilities of the various tiers of government towards financing agricultural extension services in Nigeria. It was also recommended that a demand-driven (private) extension service be institutionalized to thrive along with the UAES, which has often been seen as part of the social services rendered by government for the farming populace.

Technical Efficiency of Small-Holder Cocoyam Farmers in Anambra State Nigeria: Implications for Agricultural Extension Policy

This study employed the Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function to measure the level of technical efficiency in small-holder cocoyam production in Anambra state, Nigeria. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 120 cocoyam farmers in the state in 2005 and from them input-output data were obtained using the costroute approach. The parameters of the stochastic frontier production function were estimated using the maximum likelihood method. The result of the analysis shows that individual farm level technical efficiency was about 95%. The study found education and farming experience to be positively and significantly related to technical efficiency at 1% while practice index, fertilizer use and membership of cooperative societies also had a direct relationship with technical efficiency and were significant at 5% level. Age and farm size had an indirect relationship with technical efficiency and was significant at 1% and 5% level respectively. There were no significant relationship between technical efficiency and knowledge index, credit access and family size. Expected increases in agriculture require increase in agricultural productivity. In other words, agricultural productivity very much depends on the efficiency of the production process. Hence, policies designed to educate people through proper agricultural extension services will have a great impact in increasing the level of efficiency and hence agricultural productivity of these farmers. Key words: Technical Efficiency, Stochastic Frontier Production Function and Extension Service.

Use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) among Researchers, Extension Workers and Farmers in Abia and Enugu States: Implications for a National Agricultural Extension Policy on ICTs

The study ascertained the level of usage as well as constraints to the use of information communication technologies (ICTs) among major stakeholders in the agricultural development process in Abia and Enugu States of Nigeria. Data for the study were generated from a sample of 110 respondents using structured interview schedule and questionnaire. Findings indicate that majority (52.5%, 57.5% and 56.7%) of researchers; extension workers and farmers had high, moderate and low knowledge levels of available ICTs, respectively. Out of 24 information communication technologies in use among the respondents, 11 were frequently utilized by researchers, while only 4 and 3 of the facilities were frequently utilized by extension workers and farmers, respectively. The study revealed major constraints to the use of ICTs to include lack of sufficiently trained computer personnel, lack of confidence in operating modern ICTs, erratic and fluctuating power supply, poor finance, lack of internet access in the rural areas and high cost of ICTs hard and soft wares, among others. The study concludes with the need to have a National Agricultural Extension Policy on the use of ICTs with major emphasis on access, availability and use.

Gender analysis of adoption of improved sweet potato varieties in Ishielu, Ebonyi State, Nigeria: implications of agricultural extension policy

Gender analysis of adoption of improved sweet potato varieties in Ishielu, Ebonyi State, Nigeria: implications of agricultural extension policy

Developing a green agricultural extension theory

The purpose of this paper is to use the case of Iran to examine the basic premises of the ecological moderni zation (EM) and de-modernization (DM) theories with regard to agricultural extension policies to generate a green theory for agricultural extension. We argue that extension activities do not promote sustainability, so that technologies presented by extension are unsustainable. It is necessary to rethink seriously the activities, missions, and efforts of extension. It can be argued that agricultural extension should be reinvented. Two competing polar conceptual paths for agricultural extension are presented by EM and DM theories. These two paths are used to reconstruct the theoretical basis of agricultural extension.

LEARNING FROM THE POSITIVE TO REDUCE RURAL POVERTY AND INCREASE SOCIAL JUSTICE: INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS IN AGRICULTURAL AND NATURAL RESOURCES RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

SUMMARYThis paper argues that opportunities for reducing poverty, improving social justice, and influencing policy and institutional changes are being missed as a result of not learning enough from situations where positive changes in development indicators have already taken place. After a review of research on monitoring and evaluation (M&E), positive deviance and studies of ‘success' stories, three case studies of positive change are presented. These are the spread of bamboo tubewell irrigation in Bihar, changes in agricultural research and extension policy in Nepal, and the spread of groups and group-based organizations/federations in Nepal. General lessons include: (1) effective institutional innovation is always new and social arena specific, (2) many opportunistic social entrepreneurs are always present in arenas of positive social change, and (3) there is always purposive selection of what to observe, what to measure and what to publicize. Practical implications include: (1) strengthening social science research on understanding change in agricultural and natural resources systems, (2) selecting people for research and development intervention situations based not only on technical competence but also a track record of interest in social justice development principles, and (3) strengthening a broader concepts reflection and learning within current research and development interventions chan is currently practiced. While learning from the positive is a simple idea, it is always challenging to implement as it inevitably questions the histories, past explanations and perceptions of some scientists and development planners, especially those who promote a mainstream, formulaic approach to the design and promotion of best policies and best practices, and a simplistic, non-political/cultural approach to the transfer and scaling out and up of technology and institutional models.

Farmers' Variety Attribute Preferences: Implications for Breeding Priority Setting and Agricultural Extension Policy in Ethiopia*

Abstract: Technological progress in Ethiopian agriculture is the slowest by any standard, with rather very poor capacity to address the nation's problems of low agricultural productivity, poverty, and resource degradation. This paper argues and attributes the low level of technology adoption and impact to the discrepancy between the farmers' needs and the attributes of technologies generated. The empirical evidences have been generated based on the analyses of coffee farmers' variety attribute preferences, taking coffee seedlings as production technologies. Attribute preferences of smallholder farmers are governed by their contextual household characteristics, institutional, and socioeconomic factors. According to the results, risk vulnerable farmers prefer seeds adaptable to their local conditions and varieties with stable yield attribute. On the contrary, farmers in more accessible areas and/or those who are less concerned in securing subsistence income levels opt for income maximizing attributes, namely, yield and marketability. The study results have also shown the mechanisms of how farmers' attribute preferences change with development‐oriented interventions. The paper demonstrates why and how policy‐makers should formulate context specific technology development and agricultural extension strategies.

Agricultural extension policy in Australia: the good, the bad and the misguided

In most states of Australia, agricultural extension policies and practices have increasingly been based on considerations of private/public goods, user pays and cost recovery. In addition, the delivery of extension has been strongly influenced by changing administrative structures and a change in the paradigm within which the extension community operates. These changes have had major impacts, including more extension being delivered by the private sector. There are positive aspects to the changes and, for some issues, they are appropriate. However, we have a number of reservations, particularly about the effectiveness of current extension systems in assisting the adoption of complex environmental and farming system technologies.

Agricultural Extension Policy in Australia: Public Funding And Market Failure

Trends in public expenditure on agricultural extension are examined for Agriculture Departments in four States. There is little evidence that the share of public resources going to extension has declined. However, new demands have meant that the nature of extension has changed. A strategic approach to examining issues, such as land degradation, for the source of market failure may better guide the use of scarce public resources than the traditional focus on the public goods characteristics of research and extension. The case for evaluating broad functions such as research and extension is becoming more questionable as these functions become more diverse.

Agricultural extension policy and practice in Australia: An overview

Rapid change in the provision of agricultural extension services is occurring in all states of Australia. In most states, policies and practices have increasingly been based on considerations of private/public goods, competitive neutrality, user pays and cost recovery. In addition, the delivery of extension has been strongly influenced by changing administrative structures and a change in the paradigm within which the extension community operates. These changes in policy/ideology/paradigm have had major impacts, including a rapid increase in the amount of extension being delivered by the private sector. In this paper we provide an overview of changes and trends in extension policy and practice in Australia, which include: - emphasis on government providing services in public-good areas; - greater involvement of the private sector in the funding and delivery of agricultural extension; - group-based extension activities directed through nationally-based programs; emphasis on development of the human resource in agriculture; and a - growing commitment to participatory processes in extension activities.

The development of a National Agricultural Extension Policy in Bangladesh

Abstract Agricultural extension is moving away from externally imposed change programmes towards bottom-up planning, farmer participation and empowerment and catalysis of sustainable change, based on local needs and problems. However, many of these changes have been on a relatively small scale, in policy or institutional environments generally favouring a more traditional approach to agricultural development. For a broader process of sustainable agricultural development to occur, changes in the policy and institutional environment are required. This paper explores the process of developing an agricultural extension policy in Bangladesh and describes the content of the final policy statement, as an example of the approach taken in one country to developing a facilitative environment for sustainable agricultural development. To date, the policy statement has been approved by the Ministry of Agriculture, and an implementation strategy is being developed. The policy is only a stage in the process of change, a...

Agricultural extension policy as a framework for change

Abstract The continuing debate on the role of public sector extension has resulted in a proliferation of formal extension policy. It has been contended, however, that the notion of extension policy lacked clarity and hence an adequate framework. The impact of formal extension policy on the ongoing change process affecting the extension function and its stakeholders has therefore been poorly understood and developed. A case study of the introduction of a formal extension policy in Queensland Australia was conducted to better understand the role of formal policy in contributing to the change process. As a result of the research, recommendations were made to guide the process and content of formal extension policy. These included an emphasis on the content of formal policy as supporting the process of negotiation rather than vice versa; the avoidance of prescriptive solutions in policy formulation; and the securing of resources needed for the extension community to move in the negotiated direction of change....

Rural people's organizations and agricultural extension in the upper north of thailand: Who benefits?

Recent developments in agricultural extension policy in Thailand emphasise the importance of working with and through local organisations of rural people (RPOs). The paper describes these developments and explores four sets of arguments commonly used to support them: that they will increase the efficiency of extension by reducing the unit cost of “contact” between farmers and extension staff; that they provide a more effective means of enabling farmers, both individually and collectively, to take action in the interests of local agricultural development; that they promote equity in the provision of extension services; and that they can lead to the empowering of rural people to take greater initiative in their own development. Northern Thailand has a long history of the active involvement of local organisations in agricultural development, most notably the independent “muang fai” irrigation associations. The present century has seen a number of government sponsored efforts to promote the formation of new types of RPOs, efforts which have met with mixed success. Research conducted by the Universities of Reading and Chiang Mai in the nine provinces of the upper north identified the varied processes by which RPOs come into being and investigated the relationships between RPOs and extension agencies in the government and voluntary sectors. A series of case studies in different parts of the region provides evidence in support of the above four sets of arguments. These studies also show, however, that current approaches can lead to new patterns of exclusion among the rural population and may lead to a debilitating dependence of newly created RPOs on government or voluntary agencies. The limitations of current approaches are identified and suggestions made for increasing the benefits of RPO-based agricultural extension.