The Impact of Strengthening Agricultural Extension Services : Evidence from Ethiopia

Buehren, Niklas ; Goldstein, Markus ; Molina, Ezequiel ; Vaillant, Julia

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION;    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY;    SMALL FARMERS;    GENDER;    GENDER GAP;   

RP-ID  :  125802

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Extension services have been implementedon a large scale in developing countries for decades.However, there is little evidence on their impact on theproductivity and welfare of farmers. Our study aims to beginto fill this evidence gap with the goal of identifying andencouraging the uptake of best practices for the delivery ofextension services by governments.Our findings suggest thatstrengthening extension services to make them moreresponsive to the needs of farmers can induce a switch tomore commercial, market-oriented agriculture.Female-headedhouseholds seem to have benefited equally from the extensionservices project but it did not contribute to reducing thegender gap in agricultural outcomes as their initial levelsof wealth and consumption, as well as labor and capitalendowments were lower.Additional research is required toidentify extension services designs that contribute toclosing the gender gap, by addressing more specifically thechallenges faced by women in areas such as labor and capital endowment.