Chapter 44 Agricultural Extension

Role of Mobile Phone-enabled Climate Information Services in Gender-inclusive Agriculture

“…Among these, mobile phones have demonstrated their suitability to address the issue of the existing information asymmetry (Ali & Kumar, 2010;De Silva, Ratnadiwakara, & Zainudeen, 2010;Fafchamps & Minten, 2012;Mittal, 2012;Mittal, Gandhi, & Tripathi, 2010;Mittal & Mehar, 2013Muto & Yamano, 2009). Mobile-enabled information has the potential to play an important role in improving the adoption of modern technologies, inputs, and best practices (Anderson & Feder, 2007;Bhatnagar, 2008). The increasing penetration of mobile networks and handsets, and the recent introduction of a number of mobile-enabled information services in rural India presents an opportunity to make useful information more widely available (Fischer, Byerlee, & Edmeades, 2009;Mittal, 2012;Mittal & Mehar, 2013.…”

Seeing is Believing? Evidence from an Extension Network Experiment

“…Neoclassical growth theories suggest learning-by-doing may be of equal importance to formal training in explaining human capital formation as a production input (Lucas, 1988). While learning-by-doing theories are supported in the context of firm or plant-level studies (Levitt et al, 2012;Thompson, 2010), empirical evidence of the significance of learning through extension programs on agricultural growth is mixed (Bindlish and Evenson, 1997;Purcell and Anderson, 1997;Gautam, 2000;Anderson and Feder, 2007;Benin et al, 2007;Davis et al, 2012;Waddington et al, 2014). We contribute to this research agenda by formally documenting the impact of augmenting an existing, decentralized extension model with a relatively low-cost centralized training modality.…”

The Impacts of Farmer Field School Training on Knowledge and Farm Technology Adoption: Evidence from Smallholder Maize Farmers in Oromia, Ethiopia

“…However, the long term empowerment goals of FFS training program depends on enabling graduates to continue to expand their knowledge and to help others to learn and to organize activities within their communities to institutionalize different practices (Douthwaite et al, 2003;Anderson & Feder, 2007;Braun & Duveskog, 2008;Soniia & Christopher, 2011). In this case, however, we did not find any evidence of FFS graduate farmers helping other farmers to gain more agriculture skills and build their self confidence.…”