Agricultural Extension, Rural Development and the Food Security Challenge


Book Description

This publication reviews key trends and policy developments aimed at reforming agricultural extension systems, in order to address issues of food security, poverty alleviation and rural sustainable development. It highlights the importance of the public sector in promoting rural development through extension and communication. A number of recommendations are made for developing countries, which seek to encourage institutional reforms and dialogue among diverse providers of extension services, all aimed at advancing livelihoods and income generation of poor rural people.




The Million Farmers School: An evaluation of its impact on farmers’ agricultural knowledge in Uttar Pradesh, India


Book Description

The Million Farmers School (MFS) is an innovative extension program initiated by the Department of Agriculture in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, in 2017. Twice in a year, the department deploys its entire extension machinery to organize nearly 15,000 training programs for about a million farmers across all districts of the state. Unlike traditional extension services, MFS integrates various facets of agricultural knowledge into a packaged product and delivers through village-level trainings where printed material on the topics of training are also distributed among participants. This study presents early findings of a process evaluation, involving assessments of program design, implementation strategies, and estimation of benefits from program participation. In addition to consultation with public officials and community organizations, a state-level representative survey was conducted on a sample of both participating and non-participating households. The early results based on matching and instrumental variable methods—suggest that knowledge outcomes are significantly better among participants vis-à-vis non-participants. The results are robust to different model specifications. The study also qualitatively assesses various aspects of the program’s design and implementation, highlighting the constraints and challenges it faces and offers implementation advice for greater efficacy in its future course.




Agricultural Extension


Book Description

Abstract: May 1999 - The agriculture sector must nearly double biological yields on existing farmland to meet food needs, which will double in the next quarter century. A sustainable approach to providing agricultural extension services in developing countries-minimal external inputs, a systems orientation, pluralism, and arrangements that take advantage of the best incentives for farmers and extension service providers-will release the local knowledge, resources, common sense, and organizing ability of rural people. Is agricultural extension in developing countries up to the task of providing the information, ideas, and organization needed to meet food needs? What role should governments play in implementing or facilitating extension services? Roughly 80 percent of the world's extension is publicly funded and delivered by civil servants, providing a range of services to the farming population, commercial producers, and disadvantaged target groups. Budgetary constraints and concerns about performance create pressure to show the payoff on investment in extension and to explore alternatives to publicly providing it. Feder, Willett, and Zijp analyze the challenges facing policymakers who must decide what role governments should play in implementing or facilitating extension services. Focusing on developing country experience, they identify generic challenges that make it difficult to organize extension: The magnitude of the task; Dependence on wider policy and other agency functions; Problems in identifying the cause and effect needed to enable accountability and to get political support and funding; Liability for public service functions beyond the transfer of agricultural knowledge and information; Fiscal sustainability; Inadequate interaction with knowledge generators. Feder, Willett, and Zijp show how various extension approaches were developed in attempts to overcome the challenges of extension: Improving extension management; Decentralizing; Focusing on single commodities; Providing fee-for-service public extension services; Establishing institutional pluralism; Empowering people by using participatory approaches; Using appropriate media. Each of the approaches has weaknesses and strengths, and in their analysis the authors identify the ingredients that show promise. Rural people know when something is relevant and effective. The aspects of agricultural extension services that tend to be inherently low cost and build reciprocal, mutually trusting relationships are those most likely to produce commitment, accountability, political support, fiscal sustainability, and the kinds of effective interaction that generate knowledge. This paper-a joint product of Rural Development, Development Research Group, and the Rural Development Department-is part of a larger effort in the Bank to identify institutional and policy reforms needed to promote sustainable and equitable rural development. The authors may be contacted at [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected].




Agricultural extension: Global status and performance in selected countries


Book Description

Agricultural transformation and development are critical to the livelihoods of more than a billion small-scale farmers and other rural people in developing countries. Extension and advisory services play an important role in such transformation and can assist farmers with advice and information, brokering and facilitating innovations and relationships, and dealing with risks and disasters. Agricultural Extension: Global Status and Performance in Selected Countries provides a global overview of agricultural extension and advisory services, assesses and compares extension systems at the national and regional levels, examines the performance of extension approaches in a selected set of country cases, and shares lessons and policy insights. Drawing on both primary and secondary data, the book contributes to the literature on extension by applying a common and comprehensive framework — the “best-fit” approach — to assessments of extension systems, which allows for comparison across cases and geographies. Insights from the research support reforms — in governance, capacity, management, and advisory methods — to improve outcomes, enhance financial sustainability, and achieve greater scale. Agricultural Extension should be a valuable resource for policymakers, extension practitioners, and others concerned with agricultural development.




Agricultural extension and rural advisory services: What have we learned? What’s next?


Book Description

Agricultural extension provides the critical connection from agricultural innovation and discovery to durable improvements at scale, as farmers and other actors in the rural economy learn, adapt, and innovate with new technologies and practices. However, lack of capacity and performance of agricultural extension in lower- and middle-income countries is an ongoing concern. Research on agricultural extension and advisory services (in short, extension) has been an integral part of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) since its inception. This brief synthesizes key findings from research funded by and linked to PIM from 2012 to 2021, presenting lessons learned and a vision for the future of extension. A list of all PIM-related extension and advisory services research is provided at the end. Designing and implementing effective provision of extension is complex, and efforts to strengthen extension services often fall into a trap of adopting “best practice” blueprint approaches that are not well-tailored to local conditions. An expansive literature examines the promises and pitfalls of common approaches, including training-and-visit extension systems, farmer field schools, and many others (Anderson and Feder 2004; Anderson et al. 2006; Waddington and White 2014; Scoones and Thompson 2009). To understand extension systems and build evidence for what works and where, the “best-fit” framework, a widely recognized approach developed by Birner and colleagues (2009) and adapted by Davis and Spielman (2017), offers a simple impact chain approach (Figure 1). The framework focuses on a defined set of extension service characteristics that affect performance: governance structures and funding; organizational and management capacities and cultures; methods; and community engagement — all of which are subject to external factors such as the policy environment, agroecological conditions, and farming-system heterogeneity. To enhance extension performance and, ultimately, a wide range of outcomes and impacts, new and innovative interventions can be applied and adapted within this set of extension characteristics.




The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018


Book Description

New evidence this year corroborates the rise in world hunger observed in this report last year, sending a warning that more action is needed if we aspire to end world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. Updated estimates show the number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to prevailing levels from almost a decade ago. Although progress continues to be made in reducing child stunting, over 22 percent of children under five years of age are still affected. Other forms of malnutrition are also growing: adult obesity continues to increase in countries irrespective of their income levels, and many countries are coping with multiple forms of malnutrition at the same time – overweight and obesity, as well as anaemia in women, and child stunting and wasting.




Agriculture and Development


Book Description

The book highlights proceedings from the Berlin 2008: Agriculture and Development conference held in preparation for the World Development Report 2008.




The State of Food and Agriculture 2000


Book Description

The State of Food and Agriculture 2000 reports on current developments and issues of importance for world agriculture, analysing global agricultural trends as well as the broader economic environments surrounding the agricultural sector in a comprehensive world review ... An important feature of this year's issue is the special chapter, World food and agriculture: lessons from the past 50 years, which gives an overview of developments that have taken place in world agriculture and food security over the past half-century ... -- from Back Cover.




Adaptation Policy Frameworks for Climate Change


Book Description

Adaptation is a process by which individuals, communities and countries seek to cope with the consequences of climate change. The process of adaptation is not new; the idea of incorporating future climate risk into policy-making is. While our understanding of climate change and its potential impacts has become clearer, the availability of practical guidance on adaptation has not kept pace. The development of the Adaptation Policy Framework (APF) is intended to help provide the rapidly evolving process of adaptation policy-making with a much-needed roadmap. Ultimately, the purpose of the APF is to support adaptation processes to protect - and enhance - human well-being in the face of climate change. This volume will be invaluable for everyone working on climate change adaptation and policy-making.




Knowledge Generation and Technical Change


Book Description

Knowledge generation and transfer mechanisms are being transformed in important and controversial ways. Investment in research and development has increased in response to recognition that scientific productivity is tightly connected to economic dynamism. Patent protection has been expanded in order to stimulate higher levels of private investment. Intellectual property rights held by public organizations and researchers are now increasingly transferred to private organizations to accelerate the diffusion and enhance the value of knowledge produced by public agencies and universities. Additionally, new institutions such as university offices of technology transfer, venture capital markets, and a variety of consortia in knowledge-intensive industries are being established throughout the United States and in other parts of the world. These changes have led to a repositioning of the state in systems of innovation and an increase in the proprietary character of technical information. The purpose of this book is to review and analyze i) contemporary transitions in agricultural knowledge generation and extension arrangements from an empirical perspective, and ii) emerging and contradictory perspectives as to how knowledge systems can be assessed effectively. The authors aim to provide the reader with a better understanding of the implications of new biotechnologies and new intellectual property rights regimes on public-private relations in science, the extent to which benefits from scientific knowledge are being appropriated by private sector actors, the diversity and possible outcomes of privatization initiatives in extension, and prospects for public goods production and ecological sustainability given contemporary trends. The book presents contrasting views on the degree of complementarity and substitution between private and public sector investments in research and extension. Recognizing that the labels `public' and `private' are incomplete and at times misleading descriptions of the structure and function of coordinating bodies in social systems, the analyses highlight ways in which public and private spaces and modes of functioning combine. In addition to illustrating a broad range of analytic methodologies useful for studying organizational questions in knowledge systems, the authors identify the implications of a range of past and potential institutional innovations.