Sources and models of agricultural innovation in developed and developing countries

Jarrett, Frank G.

doi:10.1016/0309-586x(85)90092-5

Cited by 20 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The goals of agricultural extension include transferring information from the global knowledge base and from local research to farmers, enabling them to clarify their own goals and possibilities, educating them on how to make better decisions, and stimulating desirable agricultural development (van der Ban and Hawkins 1996). Thus extension services provide human capital-enhancing inputs, including information flows that can improve rural welfare-an important outcome long recognized in the development dialogue (Leonard 1977;Garforth 1982;Jarrett 1985;Feder, Just, and Zilberman 1986;Roberts 1989). That interest continues in contemporary dialogue, as evident in the workshop on public extension services convened by the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Neuchatel Group to review recent approaches to revitalizing extension services (World Bank 2002).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural Extension: Good Intentions and Hard Realities

Anderson¹

2004

The World Bank Research Observer

415

325

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What considerations lead policymakers to invest in agricultural extension as a key public responsibility, and what factors and agency incentives explain differences in extension system performance? To help answer these questions, this article provides a framework outlining farmers' demand for information, the public goods character of extension services, and the organizational and political attributes affecting the performance of extension systems. This conceptual framework is used to analyze several extension modalities and their likely and actual effectiveness. The analysis highlights the efficiency gains that can come from locally decentralized delivery systems with incentive structures based on largely private provision, although in most poorer countries extension services will remain publicly funded.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural Extension: Good Intentions and Hard Realities

Anderson¹

2004

The World Bank Research Observer

415

325

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Agricultural extension (henceforth, extension) has historically been a crucial part of agricultural development through outreach to farmers across rural communities (Garforth, 1982;Jarrett. 1985;Wellard et al, 2013;Wossen et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Information Communication Technologies in Agricultural Extension Delivery

Amadu

McNamara²

2019

AJFAND

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Agriculture is the backbone of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, lack of efficient extension systems to support agricultural development is widely seen as a missing link in agricultural transformation in the region. International development agencies have in the past four decades invested heavily in various extension models such as the Training and Visit and Farmer Field School systems in order to enhance the performance of extension workers. Despite such investments, the performance of extension agents does remain suboptimal in many contexts. Studies in other sectors show that incentivizing worker performance through nudges such as incentive realignment schemes that tie worker performance to a pay/bonus system could enhance worker productivity. However, there is a lack of incentive realignment studies that estimate the performance of extension agents in sub-Saharan Africa. A potential hindrance to the application of such scheme to extension is the absence of monitoring mechanisms to track the performance of extension agents who often work across diverse local contexts to reach smallholder farmers with extension advice. This study empirically estimates the effect of an information communication technology (ICT)-based payment incentive system that tracks the performance of extension workers in rural Uganda. It undertakes a quasi-experimental ex-post impact assessment of a payment incentive realignment as an exogenous shift in the price of labor for extension services by Ugandan Community Knowledge Workers (CKWs) in 2011. This study applies a difference-indifference with propensity score matching technique to estimate the effect of an ICT-based incentive realignment scheme in 2011, on the performance of 461 CKWs in rural Uganda. The study shows that CKWs in rural Uganda respond positively to an ICT-based performance incentive scheme that affects the price of labor. Results suggest that such performance systems can enhance the productivity of CKWs-an exemplar of rural extension agents in Uganda and elsewhere in developing countries. It also finds that younger CKWs respond more productively to higher incentives than their older counterparts. Therefore, the study suggests that extension policies that tie extension agents' performance to ICT-based payment incentives could enhance their performance and contribute towards the sustainable developments goals on food security, among others, through multiplier effects.

show abstract

“…As cited in Klerkx, van Mierlo and Leeuwis (), a wide range of approaches to agricultural innovation have emerged over the past 40 years. These include induced innovation (Ruttan and Hayami, ), transfer of technology (Jarrett, ), participatory research and technology development (Farrington and Martin, ), problem solving algorithm for resource management (Barrett and Bohlen, ), training and visit system (Hulme, ), farmer first (Chambers and Thrupp, ) and agricultural knowledge and information systems (Rivera and Qamar, ; World Bank, ). All of these approaches have attempted to overcome the challenges of a complex world without seeing beyond the details to the context of the relationships in which the problems are embedded in order to display the behaviour of cause and effect from a systems viewpoint (Banson et al ., 2015; Mai and Smith, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systems Thinking Approach to the Structure, Conduct and Performance of the Agricultural Sector in Ghana

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The continuous growth in population and consumption, the intensity of competition for land, water and energy and the overexploitation of the ecosystem have all affected Africa's ability to sustain its food security and natural resources. In recent years, many promising agricultural development initiatives were unable to provide sustainable solutions to agricultural challenges in most parts of Africa, including Ghana, as a result of policy failures. The agricultural sector is a complex system and requires a holistic approach to deal with the root causes of challenges. This research therefore uses systems thinking tools, including causal loop diagrams and Bayesian belief network modelling, to develop new structural systems models whereby stakeholders can determine the components and interactions between the structure, conduct and performance (SCP) of the agricultural sector in Ghana, by using the first five steps of the Evolutionary Learning Laboratory. The results illustrate how the SCP elements interact together to influence the survival and growth of the agricultural sector. The study identifies that stakeholders adopt several strategies to survive and compete, which lead to overexploitation of the ecosystem. The results from the Bayesian belief network models indicate that the implementation of systemically determined interventions, policies and strategies could significantly improve the probability of business survival and growth from 58.8 to 73%. Also, the chances of improving the SCP could be increased from 39, 28.3 and 36.4 to 80.1, 55.9 and 62.4%, respectively, and these may vary based on the conditional probability tables. This paper contributes to the systemic approach to SCP, in that improvements to production and allocative efficiency may usher in a greater potential for improving food security, supporting the ecosystem and further strengthening agricultural sustainability. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

show abstract

Sources and models of agricultural innovation in developed and developing countries

Cited by 20 publications

References 4 publications

Agricultural Extension: Good Intentions and Hard Realities

Agricultural Extension: Good Intentions and Hard Realities

The Role of Information Communication Technologies in Agricultural Extension Delivery

A Systems Thinking Approach to the Structure, Conduct and Performance of the Agricultural Sector in Ghana

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About