Extension programs are an important component of government agricultural policy and development strategies in nations across the globe. Extension is a principal means for governments to communicate best practices to farmers and is therefore instrumental in supporting rural livelihoods, ensuring an adequate supply of food, and maintaining the economy, especially in low-income nations where economies and labor forces remain predominantly rural and agricultural.
In their recently published paper, “How Do Farmers Learn from Extension Services? Evidence from Malawi,” Associate Professor Hope Michelson of the University of Illinois, Senior Lecturer Annemie Maertens of the University of Sussex, and post-doctoral researcher Vesall Nourani from MIT compare the performance of two primary models of delivering extension services: field days and demonstration plots, and shed light on how farmers learn about new technologies with multiple components. The field day, a one-day event in which farmers are shown new agricultural techniques, but don’t get hands-on experience, and the demonstration plot, a farmer-led season-long program in which participants practice new cultivation methods more thoroughly.
Michelson, Maertens and Nourani conducted the research in Malawi, where extension systems are particularly over-burdened and under-funded. They are focused on new integrated multi-component techniques to help farmers build soil health. These sorts of integrated soil fertility management practices (sometimes known as ISFM) can be particularly difficult to teach and disseminate. While extension methods and systems are not perfect, Michelson asserts that extension programs have been and continue to be extremely valuable, both to high income countries and countries like Malawi where much of agriculture remains subsistence, on small plots, and relying on manual labor. She notes that researchers have found in many cases that the rate of return extension programs achieve is frustratingly small. Michelson, the Illinois based author of the paper, suggests that one reason that extension in low-income countries has been found to have limited impacts is that we lack good understanding regarding how farmers take in information when learning via extension.
The researchers use a quasi‐randomized controlled trial and the collection of detailed panel data among Malawian farmers in their analysis. They describe Malawian farmers’ decision-making as a two-step process. First, before committing any significant time and energy, farmers examine the feasibility of what they are shown, making considerations regarding how a new technology is likely to interact with their local climate and soil, estimate yields, and weigh the costs and potential benefits of implementation. In the second step, farmers then decide how much effort to invest in learning the new practices.
Study results showed that farmers’ beliefs are heavily influenced by their firsthand and local experience. The authors explain that it can be daunting for small-holder farmers to invest in new technologies with high startup costs. Malawian farmers have to deal with limited credit access, making it hard to finance new technologies. Results show that farmers who participated in farmer-led demonstration plot exercises were more likely to plan on implementing new technologies than those invited to attend field days.
The policy challenge relates to the fact that demonstration plots are much more expensive to run on average. Demonstration plots in every village may not be a scalable or sensible solution (the quality of management and therefore their effectiveness might decrease as the number increased for example). Cognizant of this, the authors advocate for using the services sequentially, with field days used to attract attention and draw people in, and then operating a smaller number of demonstration plots afterwards for those who want to continue their learning. The authors also underscore the importance of exhibiting and encouraging enthusiasm in the first stage of learning, taking care to tailor presentations to address farmers’ relevant constraints.
Extension programs that apply new technologies can be expensive for governments to implement but the authors of “How Do Farmers Learn from Extension Services? Evidence from Malawi,” hope that their model of rural farmers’ learning process can inform and guide these efforts, contributing to more widespread and informed adoption of new technologies.
Full Citation:
Maertens, A., Michelson, H. and Nourani, V. (2020), How Do Farmers Learn from Extension Services? Evidence from Malawi. Amer. J. Agr. Econ.. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajae.12135