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2. Blending digital and physical tools to deliver CSA information
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Ndirangu, Stella (author)
- Format:
- Opinion
- Publication Date:
- 2019
- Published:
- 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."
3. Does it matter who advises farmers? Pest management choices with public and private extension
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Wuepper, David (author), Roleff, Nikolaus (author), and Finger, Robert (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-01-01
- Published:
- Switzerland: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12514
- Journal Title:
- Food Policy
- Journal Title Details:
- 99
- Notes:
- 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.
4. Farmers’ assessment of the effectiveness of extension communication methods used in Ogbomoso agricultural zone of Oyo-State, Nigeria
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Yekinni, Oyedeji. T. (author) and Afolabi, Christiana. O. (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- unknown
- Published:
- African Journals Online
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 122 Document Number: D11144
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agricultural Extension
- Journal Title Details:
- 23(3):126-134
- Notes:
- 9 pages., via online journal., This study assessed the effectiveness of extension communication methods used in disseminating information to farmers in Ogbomoso Agricultural zone of Oyo State. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 120 respondents. Data were analysed using frequency, percentage, standard deviation, mean, median and mode statistics. The findings show that the extension communication methods used for farmers were farm visit (89.2%) and home visit (78.5%), contact farmers (73.3%) and method demonstration (51.7%). Contact farmers, farm visits and home visit were the most frequently used communication strategies by extension agencies while farm visit (x=1.57) was the most preferred extension method to receive information and technologies and respondents perceived the extension communication methods used to be moderately effective. The study recommends that extension officers should consider the use of communication methods preferred by the farmers to communicate information to them.
5. Learning from experts and peer farmers about rice production: experimental evidence from Cote d’Ivoire
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Takahashi, Kazushi (author), Mano, Yukichi (author), and Otsuka, Keijiro (author)
- Format:
- Journal article abstract
- Publication Date:
- 2019
- Published:
- Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 18 Document Number: D10534
- Journal Title:
- World Development
- Journal Title Details:
- 122: 157-169
- Notes:
- Abstract via online journal. 2 pages., Technological innovation is vital to economic growth and food security in sub-Saharan Africa where agricultural productivity has been stagnant for a long time. Extension services and learning from peer farmers are two common approaches to facilitate the diffusion of new technologies, but little is known about their relative effectiveness. Selection bias, whereby well-motivated training participants would perform better even without extension services, as well as knowledge spillovers, where non-participants can indirectly benefit from extension services, are among the major threats to causal inference. Using a unique sequential randomized experiment on agricultural training, this study attempts to meet the dual objectives of executing rigorous impact evaluation of extension services and subsequent spillovers on rice production in Cote d’Ivoire. Specifically, to reduce selection bias, we randomly assigned eligibility for training participation; and to satisfy the stable unit treatment value assumption, control-group farmers were initially restricted from exchanging information with treated-group farmers who had received rice management training. Once some positive impacts were confirmed, information exchange between the treated and control farmers was encouraged. We found that the initial performance gaps created by the randomized assignment disappeared over time, due presumably to social learning from peer farmers. A detailed analysis concerning the information network and peer effects provided suggestive evidence that there were information and technology spillovers from treated to control farmers after removing the information exchange restriction. Overall, our study demonstrates that information dissemination by farmers can be as effective in improving practices as the initial training provided by extension services.
6. Nexus between the invisibility of agricultural extension services and rural livelihoods development: Assertions from rural farming communities
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Qwabe, Q.N. (author), Swanepoel, J.W. (author), Zwane, E.M (author), and Van Niekerk, J.A (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-11-02
- Published:
- South Africa: South African Society for Agricultural Extension
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12717
- Journal Title:
- South African Journal of Agricultural Extension
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol.50, N.2
- Notes:
- 16 pages, Agricultural extension is one of the essential services that are offered by the South African Department of Agriculture, Land Reform, and Rural Development (DALRRD), to facilitate agricultural development in rural communities. The significance of agricultural extension is that it offers new knowledge to farmers and allows space for growth through various interventions such as agrarian transformation and improving livelihoods through the promotion of agriculture as a vehicle for ‘pro-poor’ economic growth. However, there is a concern that extension services are invisible in resource-restricted and previously marginalised rural communities. The study presented in this paper examined farmer’s experiences with extension practitioners and the impact of a lack of extension services on the development of impoverished rural communities. The researchers adopted a qualitative design wherein six focus group discussions were held to gather data from the farmers. Data were analyzed using ATLAS.ti22, a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS). Four themes of extension services that have a direct linkage to livelihood development, namely, the impact on rural livelihoods, production challenges, marketability, and economic impact, and the invisibility of extension services, were the central point of discussion.
7. Switching up climate-smart agriculture adoption: Do "green" subsidies, insurance, risk aversion and impatience matter?
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Ngoma, Hambulo (author), Mason-Wardell, Nichole M. (author), Samboko, Paul C. (author), and Hangoma, Peter (author)
- Format:
- Research summary
- Publication Date:
- 2019
- Published:
- Zambia: Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing.
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 166 Document Number: D11674
- Notes:
- 4 pages., Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy, Research Paper 164., Using games, researchers tested the hypothesis that innate behavioral traits such as risk and time preferences play a role in Zambia farmers' decisions about adoption of Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. "Given our findings that more risk-averse individuals are less likely to adopt CSA, a practice that is intended to be risk-reducing, a key policy implication is the need for a retooling of both public and private extension services to better demonstrate and educate farmers on the risk-reducing effect of CSA practices such as conservation agriculture. Moreover, if insurance and subsidies are to be used successfully to nudge adoption, extension will need to educate farmers on the structure of and mechanisms of payouts. This is important to build trust in the incentive systems.
8. The agricultural knowledge network in the Netherlands
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Format:
- unknown
- Publication Date:
- unknown
- Published:
- Netherlands
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 134 Document Number: C20583
- Notes:
- Burton Swanson Collection
9. Towards an efficient post Covid-19 ict based extension service delivery model for the sugar industry of eSwatini
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Dlamini, M.M. (author), Worth, S.H. (author), and Ajayi, O.A. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-12-09
- Published:
- South Africa: South African Society for Agricultural Extension
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12730
- Journal Title:
- South African Journal of Agricultural Extension
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 49, N. 3
- Notes:
- 15 pages, This study presents a designed ICT based extension service delivery system for the sugar industry of Eswatini. The model is an improvement of the current system and it presents a delivery system that is void of many limitations. This model emanates from findings of a survey which involved all smallholder sugarcane farmers (N=172) and their extension officers (N=17). The survey investigated how information and knowledge are currently managed within the sugar industry. Basically, the model revolves around the use of mobile phones to relay information among the sugar industry stakeholders in a timely, more organised, productive and cost-effective ways, without contravention of the COVID-19 pandemic protocols. Sugarcane stakeholders can now be able to exchange information using the model without having to meet physically, which is what most of the traditional approaches required. The exchange of information can be in a form of voiced, pre-recorded information in the form of texts, audio, or audio visuals. This would go a long way in enhancing smallholder farmer’s productivity as it has the potential of empowering more rural sugarcane farmers with crucial information for improved productivity. The model has the potential to sustain itself as the participation of the stakeholders is promoted.