Ag Extension
Ag Extension
Ag Extension
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Agricultural extension:
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The goals of agricultural extension include transferring information from the global
knowledge base and from local research to farmers, enabling them to clarify their
own goals and possibilities, educating them on how to make better decisions, and
stimulating desirable agricultural development (van der Ban and Hawkins 1996).
Thus extension services provide human capital–enhancing inputs, including infor-
mation flows that can improve rural welfare—an important outcome long recognized
in the development dialogue (Leonard 1977; Garforth 1982; Jarrett 1985; Feder,
Just, and Zilberman 1986; Roberts 1989). That interest continues in contemporary
dialogue, as evident in the workshop on public extension services convened by the
World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Neuchatel
Group to review recent approaches to revitalizing extension services (World Bank
Public Disclosure Authorized
2002).
Investments in extension services have the potential to improve agricultural
productivity and increase farmers’ incomes, especially in developing economies,
where more than 90 percent of the world’s nearly 1 million extension personnel
are located. Yet the impact of extension on farm performance is varied, reflecting
Conceptual Framework
Extension, broadly defined, focuses on the delivery of information inputs to farmers.
Information can be of many types, from estimates of future prices for farm products
to new research products, such as improved crop cultivars and knowledge about
how to use particular inputs, such as the timing and intensity of fertilizer use (Byerlee
1998). Farmers have a demand for information and may be prepared to pay for it as
they do for other inputs according to how productive they perceive it to be (Dinar 1996).
Demand for information delivery systems supporting farming should be increasing
if, as agricultural analysts argue, farming is becoming more information-intensive
42 The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring 2004)
(Byerlee 1998). How that demand is met varies greatly, depending on market and
institutional conditions. Gautam (2000), for instance, concludes that there is signi-
ficant unmet demand in Kenya for general agricultural extension services. How
different types of information are best delivered depends crucially on the nature of
the information and the circumstances of the farmer.
• Only when market and participation failures are high should the public sector
finance information provision—better would be public sector financing of private
service delivery.
Reforms have ranged from contracting with the private sector to provide extension
services in order to reduce costs and improve cost-effectiveness to drawing on private
sector funding to improve the financial sustainability of extension (Beynon and
others 1998). The economic rationale for farmers to pay for extension services
is generally clear, and the practice is well established in high-income countries
(Marsh and Pannell 2000). In developing economies, however, many producers
are unable or unwilling to pay for services, in part because they have not seen
examples of effective, responsive extension. Many countries have few extension
service providers outside the public sector, and few public institutions have the
incentives and institutional arrangements in place to encourage program cost
recovery.
44 The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring 2004)
Feder, Willett, and Zijp (2001) identify eight interrelated characteristics of public
extension systems that jointly result in deficient performance, low staff morale, and
financial stress. These characteristics provide a framework for analyzing the performance
of different levels of extension personnel, the system as a whole, and the underpin-
nings of different organizational forms and for predicting their likely performance.
Scale and complexity. In countries with large numbers of farmers working rela-
tively small plots (as is common in most developing areas), the potential clients of
extension services live in geographically dispersed communities. Underdeveloped
transport links add to the cost and difficulty of reaching these farmers. High rates of
illiteracy and limited connections to electronic mass media rule out reaching these
clients through means that do not require face-to-face interaction (written materials,
radio, television, the Internet).
Thus, the number of clients who need to be covered by extension services is large,
and the cost of reaching them is high. Adding to the challenge, farmers’ information
needs vary even within a given geographical area because of variations in soil,
elevation, microclimate, and farmers’ means and capabilities. The large size of the
clientele means that only a small number of farmers can interact directly with extension
agents. Because direct contacts are rationed, agents often select the farmers they will
interact with, preferring larger-scale, better-endowed, and more innovative farmers
who can provide some in-kind payment and are likely to exhibit better performance
(Feder and Slade 1993). This sort of supply-side rationing is exacerbated by self-
selection by farmers. Those who attach a higher value to (larger demand for)
information tend to be large-scale farmers with better opportunities for taking
advantage of information.
This selectivity of contacts has ramifications for the diffusion of information
through farmer-to-farmer communications. Because the farmers who tend to have
more extension contacts are often not typical of the farming population, other farm-
ers are less inclined to follow the example of contact farmers or to seek their advice
(despite some positive experiences, such as in Israel; Keynan, Olin, and Dinar 1997).
On the supply side, the reaction to the large clientele is to deploy large numbers
of extension agents, which presents a management challenge for national organiza-
tions or organizations managed by large geographical administrative units (states
or provinces). When there are large numbers of field personnel, there is a tendency to
adopt a centralized, hierarchical, top-down management system. Such bureaucracies
are not generally receptive to participatory approaches to information delivery and
priority setting (Fleischer, Waibel, and Walter-Echols 2002), and by distancing
decisionmaking from the field level, they often lead to suboptimal decisions.
46 The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring 2004)
problems of budget allocation and staff incentives and accountability, both upward
(to managers) and downward (to clients).
Evaluating the impact of extension involves measuring the relations between
extension and farmers’ knowledge, adoption of better practices, and use of inputs;
farm productivity and profitability; and related improvements in farmers’ welfare.
But farmers’ decisions and performance are influenced by many other systematic
and random effects (prices, credit constraints, weather, other sources of information),
so distinguishing the impact of extension advice requires careful use of econometric
and quasi-experimental methods.
The inability to attribute impact unambiguously undermines the incentives of
extension staff to reach out to farmers or even update their skills and knowledge.
Instead of assessing outcomes and performance, time is spent collecting and reporting
on input indicators, which are easier to obtain and measure.
Weak political commitment and support. Even in countries where agriculture is still
a large economic sector, public policies and investments have traditionally favored
urban areas (Binswanger and Deininger 1997). Within agriculture, extension tends
to be a weak claimant on agricultural budgets. In nearly half the extension projects
examined in a mid-1990s World Bank study, lack of commitment and support by
senior government officials adversely affected implementation and funding (Purcell
and Anderson 1997). Feder, Willett, and Zijp (2001) posit that a plausible reason for
the lack of adequate support (and the resulting limited funding) by politicians and
senior officials to extension investments is the absence of the kind of political payoffs
that can be earned from other public outlays that have visible impacts, such as the
Public duties other than knowledge transfer. Because extension services typically
employ large numbers of public servants at the rural community level, governments
are often inclined to assign other duties to extension staff, such as collecting statis-
tics, administering loan paperwork and input distribution (for government-provided
inputs), implementing special programs (such as erosion control), and performing
regulatory duties (Feder and Slade 1993; Purcell and Anderson 1997). Many of
these duties are easier than extension services for supervisors to monitor, as there
are clear and quantifiable performance criteria (number of loan applications returned,
number of statistical reports submitted). As mentioned, there may also be monetary
incentives for performing some of these other activities (such as input distribution)
that have a clear cash value to farmers. This misallocation of extension agents’ time
at the expense of information dissemination can go undetected because the out-
comes of core extension duties are so difficult to attribute and because accountability
to farmers is weak or absent.
48 The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring 2004)
recent decades (Anderson, Clément, and Crowder 1999; Anderson 1999; FAO and
World Bank 2000).
Decentralization
Decentralization retains the public delivery and public funding characteristics of
traditional centralized extension but transfers responsibility for delivery to local
governments (district, county). This approach was tried by several Latin American
governments in the 1980s and 1990s (Wilson 1991) and by Uganda (Crowder and
Anderson 2002) and other African countries later. Decentralization is intended to
improve accountability by moving services closer to the people who use them. Local
governments (if democratically elected) are eager to receive positive feedback on ser-
vices from the clientele-electorate. This was expected to improve extension agents’
incentives and induce better service. The costs of coordination with the activities of
other agencies are also generally lower for local agencies operating in smaller geo-
graphical areas. Political commitment may be stronger as well because the clientele
is closer to the political leadership.
But decentralized extension agencies also face a multitude of additional problems.
There is greater potential for political interference and the use of extension staff for
other activities (such as election campaigns). Economies of scale in updating staff
skills can be lost, and extension-research links are more difficult to organize. Analysis
of Colombia’s experience with the decentralization of extension confirms these con-
cerns and documents a significant increase in the number of staff and thus in costs
(Garfield, Guadagni, and Moreau 1996). Problems of financial sustainability, rather
than being resolved, may merely have been transferred to the local level.
A related reform was the devolution of extension functions to farmers associa-
tions rather than to local governments, a strategy pursued in several West African
countries with some notable successes (Guinea). This approach is likely to have
a greater impact on accountability, because the employer is even closer to the clientele.
There is also greater potential for financial sustainability, because the farmers’ asso-
ciation that provides the public good is better able to recover costs from its members
(through general membership fees, for example), although government funding is
50 The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring 2004)
generally also provided to the associations. Extension agents may be permanent
employees of the associations or contract employees of private entities, nongovern-
mental organizations, or universities. Conceptually, their incentives for better ser-
vice are fairly similar regardless of their standing. Remaining problems include
difficulties maintaining agent quality due to loss of economies of scale in training
and more difficult linkages with research.
52 The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring 2004)
In practice, however, farmer-trainers have been a minor factor in national farmer
field school initiatives in Indonesia and the Philippines (Quizon, Feder, and Murgai
2001a). A study in the Philippines found little diffusion of knowledge from trained
farmers to other farmers, presumably because the content of the training is difficult
to transmit in casual, nonstructured communications (Rola, Jamias, and Quizon
2002). Recent analysis of field farmer schools in Indonesia found no significant
impact on yields and pesticide use by trained farmers or members of their communities
(Feder, Murgai, and Quizon 2004). This suggests that both the curriculum and the
training approach need to be rethought.
54 The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring 2004)
have been highly effective, whereas others have not. A recent meta-analysis of 289
studies of economic returns to agricultural research and extension found median
rates of return of 58 percent for extension investments, 49 percent for research, and
36 percent for combined investments in research and extension (Alston and others
2000).1 Similar economic performance has been documented for Sub-Saharan
Africa alone (Oehmke, Anandajayasekeram, and Masters 1997).
However, although economic analysis seems to provide fairly strong justification
for many past extension investments, it does not tell the full story. Concern about data
quality and difficult methodological issues of causality and quantification of benefits
must be important qualifiers to the prevailing evidence of good economic returns
from extension. In Kenya, perhaps the most closely studied case in developing areas
(from Leonard 1977 to Gautam 2000), early evaluations had indicated remarkably
high positive economic returns to extension investments, but a comprehensive
evaluation based on new and improved data found disappointing performance—an
ineffective, inefficient, and unsustainable training and visit system and no measur-
able impact on farmer efficiency or crop productivity (Gautam 2000). Such findings
do little to dispel the skepticism of policymakers (reinforced by observations such as
those of Hassan, Karanja, and Mulamula 1998) about the returns to investment in
public extension. More evaluative work is clearly called for to assist policymaking
and investment decisions.
Conclusion
Agricultural extension can play an important role in development. The public goods
character of much extension work underpins the extensive public investment in
extension services. But although public extension organizations are common in
developing economies, they are often inadequately funded and their effectiveness is
limited by many administrative and design deficiencies and challenges. Chief among
these are the large scale and complexity of extension operations, the important
influence of the broader policy environment, weak links between extension and
knowledge generation institutions, difficulties tracing extension impact, problems of
accountability, weak political commitment and support, the frequent encumbrance
of extension agents with public duties beyond those related to knowledge transfer,
and severe difficulties of fiscal unsustainability.
Among these general problems of extension organization, the difficulty of attrib-
uting impact weakens political support, leading to small budgets and problems of fiscal
sustainability. Ironically, this same difficulty may explain why international devel-
opment agencies continue to heavily support extension activities, financing some
$10 billion in public extension projects over the past five decades. The economic jus-
tification for the project is rarely based on solid ex ante cost-benefit analysis, because
Notes
Jock R. Anderson was an adviser and is presently a consultant in the Agriculture and Rural Develop-
ment Department at the World Bank; his e-mail address is janderson@worldbank.org. Gershon
56 The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring 2004)
Feder is research manager in the Development Research Group at the World Bank; his e-mail address
is gfeder@worldbank.org. The authors have drawn on the considerable World Bank experience
with extension, including the work of many of their colleagues, notably Gary Alex, Derek Byerlee,
Ariel Dinar, David Nielson, Dina Umali-Deininger, and Willem Zijp. Seniority of authorship is not
assigned.
1. The sample of studies was strongly oriented toward research. Only 18 of 1128 estimates of rates
of return were for “extension only,” whereas 598 were for “research only” and 512 for “research and
extension combined.”
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