Agricultural Extension

Decentralized delivery of public services has been promoted as a means to enhance citizen voice and make service provision more responsive to users. Ethiopia has undertaken two rounds of decentralization, making first the regional states and then ...

The National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) program of Uganda is an innovative public-private extension service delivery approach, with the goal of increasing market oriented agricultural production by empowering farmers to demand and ...

CONTENTS: 1. African Agriculture: Past Performance, Future Imperatives / Steven Haggblade, Peter Hazell, Ingrid Kirsten, and Richard Mkandawire; 2. Generalizing from Past Successes / Steven Haggblade; 3. Recent Growth in African Cassava / Felix ...

Decentralization implies an increase in the number of stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of interventions. This paper draws upon the experience of a multi-stakeholder program in India which has sought to increase the ...

Fertilizer consumption rates in Nigeria remains among the lowest in the world despite decades of aggressive subsidization. The extension service in Nigeria has a double-edged impact on fertilizer use in the country; not only can their activities ...

In an effort to increase the impact of extension on agricultural and pro-poor growth in developing countries, public-sector agricultural extension systems around the globe are implementing reforms that include demand-driven and decentralized ...

The top-down public agricultural extension system in China and its early commercialization reforms during the 1990s have left millions of farmers without access to extension services. A pilot inclusive agricultural extension system was introduced ...

Research has shown that women, when given the capital and opportunity, make unique, positive contributions to development outcomes ranging from agricultural productivity to poverty reduction. It comes as little surprise, then, that agricultural ...

Introduction of private enterprises to deliver agricultural advisory services is seen as a strategy to increase the coverage and effectiveness of the pluralistic extension system in developing countries. The Indian national program of agriclinics ...

“Agricultural advisory services play an important role in supporting the use of the agricultural sector as an engine of pro-poor growth and enabling small farmers to meet new challenges, such as accessing export markets, adopting ...

Many countries have recognized the need to revive agricultural advisory or extension services (the terms are used interchangeably here) as a means of using agriculture as an engine of pro-poor growth; reaching marginalized, poor, and female ...

Farmer field schools (FFSs) are a popular education and extension approach worldwide. Such schools use experiential learning and a group approach to facilitate farmers in making decisions, solving problems, and learning new techniques. However, ...

Eighty-three percent of the population of Ethiopia depends directly on agriculture for their livelihoods, while many others depend on agriculture-related cottage industries such as textiles, leather, and food oil processing. Agriculture ...

Kristin Davis, a U.S. national, is seconded to the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services based in Zurich, Switzerland. She joined IFPRI in November 2004 as a postdoctoral fellow. Prior to joining IFPRI, she worked in agricultural development ...

Despite more than a decade of policies placing high priority on cereal intensification, backed by one of the highest rates of public expenditures on agricultural in Africa, Ethiopia has yet to see payoffs in terms of higher and more stable cereal ...

In order to realize agricultural potential and to increase agricultural yields, India’s extension system has experienced major conceptual, structural, and institutional changes since the late 1990s. This paper reviews existing reform ...

Over the past four decades, decision-makers in Ethiopia have pursued a range of policies and investments to boost agricultural production and productivity, particularly with respect to the food staple crops that are critical to reducing poverty ...

“Western Kenya is one of the most densely populated areas in Africa. Farming there is characterized by low inputs and low crop productivity. Poverty is rampant in the region. Yet the potential for agriculture is considered good. In the ...

Many governments in developing countries attempt to foster agricultural development and innovation by setting up funding facilities, extension programs, and research centers and by subsidizing private-sector and farm activities through fiscal ...