International: Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, ACP-EU, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 153 Document Number: D11614
Notes:
3 pages., Online from publisher., Author addresses "large gap between African extension services ... and the number of farmers being reached." ... "Africa's existing mobile network (currently the second biggest mobile market in the world) could be better utilised to bridge this gap and provide mobile-based agricultural information, advice and support to smallholder farmers."
14 pages., via online journal,, Effective agricultural extension is key to improving productivity, increasing farmers’ access to information, and promoting more diverse sets of crops and improved methods of cultivation. In India, however, the coverage of agricultural extension workers and the relevance of extension advice is poor. We investigate whether a women's self‐help group (SHG) platform could be an effective way of improving access to information, women's empowerment in agriculture, agricultural practices, and production diversity. We use cross‐sectional data on close to 1,000 women from five states in India and employ nearest‐neighbor matching models to match SHG and non‐SHG women along a range of observed characteristics. We find that participation in an SHG increases women's access to information and their participation in some agricultural decisions, but has limited impact on agricultural practices or outcomes, possibly due to financial constraints, social norms, and women's domestic responsibilities. SHGs need to go beyond provision of information to changing the dynamics around women's participation in agriculture to effectively translate knowledge into practice.
Asenso-Okyere, Kwadwo (author), Babu, Suresh Chandra (author), Glendenning, Claire J. (author), Govindarajan, Senthil Kumar (author), and International Food Policy Research Institute.
Format:
Report
Publication Date:
2011-12
Published:
India
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 186 Document Number: D00940
Notes:
ACDC holds contents page and discussion section. URL provides full-text access., Via AgEcon Search. 53 pages.
