Book Description

This book explores the relationship between the education farmers have received and their subsequent efficiency as farm operators. The concern is with the self-employed in agriculture, the small farmer. The study is concerned solely with ascertaining empirically the effect of schooling on agricultural efficiency and, when possible, the effect of access to information as measured by exposure to extension services. The study uses data from Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand; related findings from several other countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America are reviewed. Surveys of individual farms provide the data used in the empirical analyses. Analyses from Thailand indicate that farmers of all educational levels are maximizing profits. However, more educated farmers do have higher levels of profits, which reflect the higher levels of productivity found in the production function analyses. Education has little effect on market efficiency. Higher levels of education and exposure to extension services increase the probabilities of using chemical fertilizers. The effects of education were much more likely to be positive in modernizing agricultural environments rather than in traditional ones.