19 pages., Article 3945, Via online journal., Information communication technology (ICT) has changed the traditional agricultural extension service mode worldwide. This paper examines the effects of the Rural Distance Education Project (RDEP) on the household income, agricultural productivity, and off-farm employment of farmers in peri-urban areas in Beijing. Using the survey data of 783 randomly selected farm households from 54 villages in three Beijing peri-urban districts in 2014, and the propensity score matching method (PSM), we find that the RDEP has a significant and positive effect on agricultural productivity and input use. Meanwhile, the program’s effects are heterogeneous across districts and households. For example, the RDEP has significant impacts on several outcome indicators, such as agricultural labor productivity (at a 5% level of significance), agricultural land productivity (at a 10% level), and input use intensity (at a 1% level) in Tongzhou (an agriculturally more important district, with a more intensive RDEP usage), but none of these effects is significant in Pinggu district. Furthermore, the RDEP is found to have bigger, and statistically more significant effects, for households with junior high school education than for those with either lower or higher than junior high school education. Furthermore, the RDEP is more effective for households with more assets than those with fewer assets. These results point toward the importance of using a rural distance education program as an effective extension service, and the need to take community and individual characteristics into account in the implementation and design of future programs.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C14025
Notes:
Pages 17-31 in Subhash Bhatnagar and Robert Schware (eds.), Information and communication technology in development: cases from India. Sage Publications, New Delhi, India. 2000. 230 pages.
Bangladesh: East -West Communication Institute, East-West Center, Hawaii.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C14252
Notes:
Pages 127-143 in Godwin C. Chu, Syed A. Rahim and D. Lawrence Kincaid (eds.), Communication for group transformation in development. Communication Monographs, Number 2. 424 pages.
