It is difficult to assess the impact of extension services as the indicators (e.g. adoption of technology and farm productivity) are also influenced by many other factors that have compounding effects. The effectiveness of extension in many low income countries is highly contingent on relaxing wider barriers to the successful development of the agricultural sector as a whole, including such potentially limiting factors as credit, technology, input supplies, price incentives, institutions and human resources constraint (Purcell and Anderson, 1997).
Agricultural extension had played an important role in promoting Green Revolution technologies in South Asia. The T&V system proved effective in the areas affected by the Green Revolution but less effective in rainfed areas. Insufficient relevance of new technology necessary to improve productivity is one of the most common constraints in extension, and a major constraint in rainfed, resource poor environments. In India, there is a general perception that after the fall of T&V in 1990s, the existing extension system deteriorated even though a variety of new approaches to provide and finance extension emerged. The national farm survey in 2003 in India shows that nearly 60% of the farmers had not accessed any sources for modern technology. For those who did use sources, about 6% of farmers had access to a government extension worker, less than 4% accessed primary cooperative society (farmer based organisations), and less than 1% accessed NGOs, private sector extension agencies or para-technicians (Birner and Anderson, 2007). Only around 60% of the farmers actually tried the technologies recommended by extension workers. This points to the problems regarding the practical relevance of the advice provided by extension agents.
In many of the sub-Saharan African countries, smallholders are characterized by poor adoption of technologies. According to Lipton (1988), this is partly explained by the absence of ‘smallholder-friendly’ research findings to extend. Another argument is that research stations in Africa have tended to develop ideas with too little attention to smallholder labour supplies, to the riskiness of the innovations, to the likely availability of inputs, or to the presence of markets and to the economic attractiveness of recommendations. Arokoyo (1998) pointed out that for a variety of reasons, the performance and output of national agricultural research and extension system in West and Central Africa has not been commensurate with the size, scope and level of investment in the system, as evidenced by farmers’ poor productivity, incessant and intractable food shortage and the accompanying high food prices. More recently, the low performance of the agricultural sector is rather viewed as a system problem, which is prevalent within the research – extension – farmer – input system.
There has been evidence of failures of the public and private sectors in agricultural extension. Public extension services are under pressure for their own poor performance. They are often criticized for being: inefficient and ineffective; lacking clear objectives, motivation, and incentives; being poorly managed and not accountable to clients; and lacking relevant technologies (Haug, 1999). Most public extension services have low coverage, often working with no more than 10 percent of potential clients, of which a small minority are women. Accountability to clients is lacking in top-down bureaucracies and prevents farmers from influencing extension agendas, which lack relevance to clients. Another problem is financial sustainability, especially if cost recovery is not pursued. After donor-funded programs end, extension agencies are left with an increased number of agents, which often leads to budget reduction, and ultimately ineffective extension services. One important strategy to address these failures in agricultural extension is to involve NGOs, farmer based organisations, and private sector agencies in the management and execution of extension services. To make extension more demand driven, the following strategies can be considered: 1) decentralisation, to make public agency more responsive to local needs; 2) contracting, to overcome some of the state failures such as bureaucracy and generate incentive; 3) cost recovery, to improve financial sustainability and demand orientation; 4) participatory extension approaches, to encourage farmer participation.
For private-sector based extension, market failure is a major problem. The reasons are that some types of information are public goods and also there are externalities that are difficult to account for. The characteristics of smallholder agriculture in developing countries may also lead to market failures. Because provision of extension is subject to economies of scales, providing extension services may be profitable for private companies only if they can reach a sufficiently large number of farmers. As smallholder farmers are often dispersedly located and have limited access to transport, the transaction costs of providing extension are typically high. These hinder the for-profit private sector to provide those services. In addition, farmer may not have credit to pay for extension services even though they were available. These market failures can be addressed though public sector intervention and collective action.
It is difficult to assess the impact of extension services as the indicators (e.g. adoption of technology and farm productivity) are also influenced by many other factors that have compounding effects. The effectiveness of extension in many low income countries is highly contingent on relaxing wider barriers to the successful development of the agricultural sector as a whole, including such potentially limiting factors as credit, technology, input supplies, price incentives, institutions and human resources constraint (Purcell and Anderson, 1997).
Agricultural extension had played an important role in promoting Green Revolution technologies in South Asia. The T&V system proved effective in the areas affected by the Green Revolution but less effective in rainfed areas. Insufficient relevance of new technology necessary to improve productivity is one of the most common constraints in extension, and a major constraint in rainfed, resource poor environments. In India, there is a general perception that after the fall of T&V in 1990s, the existing extension system deteriorated even though a variety of new approaches to provide and finance extension emerged. The national farm survey in 2003 in India shows that nearly 60% of the farmers had not accessed any sources for modern technology. For those who did use sources, about 6% of farmers had access to a government extension worker, less than 4% accessed primary cooperative society (farmer based organisations), and less than 1% accessed NGOs, private sector extension agencies or para-technicians (Birner and Anderson, 2007). Only around 60% of the farmers actually tried the technologies recommended by extension workers. This points to the problems regarding the practical relevance of the advice provided by extension agents.
In many of the sub-Saharan African countries, smallholders are characterized by poor adoption of technologies. According to Lipton (1988), this is partly explained by the absence of ‘smallholder-friendly’ research findings to extend. Another argument is that research stations in Africa have tended to develop ideas with too little attention to smallholder labour supplies, to the riskiness of the innovations, to the likely availability of inputs, or to the presence of markets and to the economic attractiveness of recommendations. Arokoyo (1998) pointed out that for a variety of reasons, the performance and output of national agricultural research and extension system in West and Central Africa has not been commensurate with the size, scope and level of investment in the system, as evidenced by farmers’ poor productivity, incessant and intractable food shortage and the accompanying high food prices. More recently, the low performance of the agricultural sector is rather viewed as a system problem, which is prevalent within the research – extension – farmer – input system.
There has been evidence of failures of the public and private sectors in agricultural extension. Public extension services are under pressure for their own poor performance. They are often criticized for being: inefficient and ineffective; lacking clear objectives, motivation, and incentives; being poorly managed and not accountable to clients; and lacking relevant technologies (Haug, 1999). Most public extension services have low coverage, often working with no more than 10 percent of potential clients, of which a small minority are women. Accountability to clients is lacking in top-down bureaucracies and prevents farmers from influencing extension agendas, which lack relevance to clients. Another problem is financial sustainability, especially if cost recovery is not pursued. After donor-funded programs end, extension agencies are left with an increased number of agents, which often leads to budget reduction, and ultimately ineffective extension services. One important strategy to address these failures in agricultural extension is to involve NGOs, farmer based organisations, and private sector agencies in the management and execution of extension services. To make extension more demand driven, the following strategies can be considered: 1) decentralisation, to make public agency more responsive to local needs; 2) contracting, to overcome some of the state failures such as bureaucracy and generate incentive; 3) cost recovery, to improve financial sustainability and demand orientation; 4) participatory extension approaches, to encourage farmer participation.
For private-sector based extension, market failure is a major problem. The reasons are that some types of information are public goods and also there are externalities that are difficult to account for. The characteristics of smallholder agriculture in developing countries may also lead to market failures. Because provision of extension is subject to economies of scales, providing extension services may be profitable for private companies only if they can reach a sufficiently large number of farmers. As smallholder farmers are often dispersedly located and have limited access to transport, the transaction costs of providing extension are typically high. These hinder the for-profit private sector to provide those services. In addition, farmer may not have credit to pay for extension services even though they were available. These market failures can be addressed though public sector intervention and collective action.
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..
