Daku, Lefter (author), Norton, George W. (author), Taylor, Daniel B. (author), Petrela, Eivis Qenani (author), and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
California Polytechnic State University
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2007-07-30
Published:
United States: Taylor & Francis
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 109 Document Number: D10967
12 pages, via online journal, Following the economic reforms in the early 90's, most of the south-eastern European countries (SEE) made efforts to establish agricultural extension services. However, a number of factors including tight governmental budgets, lack of experience, and the existence of vested interests have constrained the development of extension services. This paper examines the rationale for public funding of extension programs and evaluates the incentive structure for private and public provision of agricultural extension service in the SEE countries. It suggests a medium and long-term approach with a primary focus on institutional design. Two groups of factors that affect the private sector supply of extension are analyzed: (i) demand and supply-side factors that affect the profitability of the service and (ii) factors arising from the public-good nature of extension output, externalities, and moral hazards that affect the appropriation of returns of the service. The main conclusion is that the SEE countries should try to achieve a public-private extension balance by following a gradual approach toward privatization of the agricultural extension service. However, the paper advocates a continued important role for the public sector to correct for potential undesirable effects of private advisory services.
8 pages, Does it matter whether farmers receive advice on pest management strategies from public or from private (pesticide company affiliated) extension services? We use survey data from 733 Swiss fruit growers who are currently contending with an infestation by an invasive pest, the fruit fly Drosophila Suzukii. We find that farmers who are advised by public extension services are more likely (+9–10%) to use preventive measures (e.g. nets) while farmers who are advised by private extension services are more likely (+8–9%) to use synthetic insecticides. These results are robust to the inclusion of various covariates, ways to cluster standard errors, and inverse probability weighting. We also show that our results are unlikely to be driven by omitted variable bias. Our findings have implications for the current debates on both the ongoing privatization of agricultural extension and concerns regarding negative environmental and health externalities of pesticide use.
Personal interviews with 336 small-acreage sugarcane growers indicated that less than half had any knowledge of the public extension services available. Growers who were aware of extension services and sought information from extension achieved substantially higher average yields than growers who did not. Authors recommended that the Pakistan government review current extension services and consider strengthening them.
20 pages., via online journal., During the last 10 years, different initiatives have been implemented to provide mobile-based extension services for the agricultural sector in Egypt. The current study compared the quality of agricultural extension messages between public and private providers. A simple random sample of 120 farmers was selected representing 7% of the total farmers registered in the databases of Ministry of Agriculture (public services) and Shoura company (private services). Farmers assessed a sample of 10 messages delivered by both providers in terms of six indicators namely (1) access, (2) utilization, (3) timeliness, (4) trust, (5) satisfaction, and (6) sharing information with other farmers. The findings revealed the lack of access to messages by the farmers in the two services. However, more than 50% had utilized the majority of messages (in case of access). The study also showed significant differences between perception of farmers to quality attributes in public and private services (Access 6.77, 0.01; Utilization 8.44, 0.004; Timeliness 8.55, 0.002; Satisfaction 8.88, 0.001; information sharing 7.62, 0.009) except for trust (1.11, 0.4). Findings provide practical implications to support mobile-based extension services to enable sharing information and link farmers with other actors in the agricultural value chain.
Anik, Asif Reza (author), Breustedt, Gunnar (author), and Bauer, Siegfried (author)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2010-09-14
Published:
Bangladesh
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 177 Document Number: C30576
Notes:
Presented at Tropentag 2010, Conference on International Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development, Zurich, Switzerland, September 14-16, 2010. 6 pages.
Suvedi, Murari (author), Lopez Ariza, Bernado (author), and Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2009-05
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 185 Document Number: D00435
Notes:
Pages 67-77 in the proceedings of the 25th annual meeting of the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education in San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 24-28, 2009.
15 pages, Climate change poses several challenges worldwide, including the increase in severity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as droughts. As a result, there are projected environmental, economic and social impacts in several sectors, including agriculture. However, the extent of climatic impacts depends on farmers’ awareness and their capacity for adaptation in response to changes in the climate. This study analyzes the factors that influence farmers’ perception of climate change. Data were collected from a farm-household survey in the Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. Using a logistic regression model, we identified that farm size, support of extension workers, number of conservation practices adopted, and ecocentrism value influenced positively the perception. Moreover, we found that farm size relied on government actions, subsidies, and anthropocentric value was affected negatively. These findings showed that socioeconomic and psychological factors shape farmers’ perception of climate change. Extension workers and policymakers should increase farmers' awareness on climate change improving the communication on the nature importance for the ecosystem as a whole (ecocentrism) and/or explaining the importance of nature for human welfare (anthropocentrism).