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Accelerating technical change through video-mediated agricultural extension: Evidence from Ethiopia
Despite a rapidly growing enthusiasm around applications of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to smallholder agriculture in developing countries, there are still many questions on the effectiveness of ICT-based approaches. This study assesses the effects of videomediated agricultural extension service provision on farmers’ knowledge and adoption of improved agricultural technologies and practices in Ethiopia. The study focuses on a program piloted by the Government of Ethiopia and Digital Green and poses three questions. First, to what extent does video-mediated extension lead to increased uptake of improved agricultural technologies and practices by smallholder farmers? S...
Cooperation and the management of local common resources in remote rural communities: Evidence from Odisha, India
It is widely recognized that local management of common pool resources can be more efficient and more effective than private markets or top-down government management, especially in remote rural communities in which the institutions necessary for the enforcement of centrally-imposed regulations may be weak or prone to elite capture. In this paper, we explore the propensity for cooperation in the management of local common resources by introducing a variant of a public goods game among remote rural communities in the state of Odisha, in eastern India. We explore various patterns of cooperation, including free riding behavior, unconditional cooperation (altruism), and conditional cooperation, ...
Do grassroots interventions relax behavioral constraints to the adoption of nutrition-sensitive food production systems?
In many developing countries, agricultural policies and programs are often designed in a way to promote productivity growth with modern inputs and technologies, and with limited reference to the nutrition gains that can be made through production diversification. We test whether grassroots programs can relax behavioral constraints inhibiting the adoption of diversified nutrition-sensitive production systems. We use a series of lab-in-field experiments and survey instruments in Odisha, India to elicit male and female farmers’ preferences for risk, aversion to loss, empowerment and aspirations for one’s self and children. We find that respondents in villages where grassroots interventions were promoted showed significantly lower levels of risk aversion, higher levels of loss aversion and higher aspirations for themselves and their children, along with improvements in production and consumption diversity. Insights into the prevalence of behavioral constraints and interventions that relax such constraints fills an important knowledge gap in how to design programs that promote more nutrition-sensitive food production systems.
Accelerating technical change through ICTs: Evidence from a video-mediated extension experiment in Ethiopia
The use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to address a wide array of development issues has gained considerable attention among governments, practitioners, and researchers in recent years (Lwoga and Sangeda 2019). While early studies focused on mobile phones and text messaging, attention is quickly shifting to other media, including video. Many studies on the use of video as a medium explore how increased access and consumption of information can lead to behavior changes that ultimately result in welfare-improving outcomes. This study explores whether video-mediated extension leads to the increased, sustained uptake of productivity-enhancing agricultural technologies and ...
New modalities for managing drought risk in rainfed agriculture
In this paper we explore the potential for a new approach to managing drought risk among rainfed rice producers in Odisha, India. Droughts have historically been a serious constraint to agricultural production in rainfed agricultural systems, with droughts resulting in significant reductions in both yields and cultivated area, in turn leading to significant impacts on rural livelihoods and food security. Scientists and policy makers have proposed various strategies for managing risks, with limited success. In this study we consider two such strategies, specifically drought-tolerant rice and weather index insurance. While neither drought-tolerant cultivars nor weather index insurance products...
Assessing agricultural extension agent digital readiness in Rwanda
Effective agricultural extension and advisory services are a key component of efforts to achieve sustainable agricultural production, resilient livelihoods, and inclusive economic growth. These are all necessary elements for accelerating Rwanda’s agricultural transformation. Both extension and information and communication technologies (ICT) are important elements in Rwanda’s Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation. This paper examines the capacities of public and private agricultural extension agents in Rwanda and their readiness to use ICT in their work—that is, to be digitally equipped—and provides recommendations for enhancing agricultural extension capacities through expanding and effectively using ICT. To examine capacities and readiness, we use a representative survey of 500 public and private extension agents in Rwanda, augmented by qualitative data from a literature review and key informant interviews. To assess agents’ ‘digital readiness,’ we create two indices focused on their digital experiences and attitudes toward digital modernization.
Does identity affect aspirations in rural India? An examination from the lens of caste and gender
We use priming, a concept popular in social psychology, to study the effect of identity salience on aspirations for self and children as part of an impact evaluation in Odisha, India. We measure the effect of an individual’s genderand caste-identity salience on improving aspirations for themselves and for their children’s future profession and education. We find that when women are primed on gender, they exhibit higher aspirations for their daughters. Similarly, low-caste women primed on caste are more aspirational for their daughters. We do not find similar results for men. The effect of caste priming is more apparent in areas where significant ethnic heterogeneity exists and muted in ethnically homogenous areas. We find that aspirations for boys are already very high, thus priming has no effect on aspirations for sons.
Insuring against droughts: Evidence on agricultural intensification and index insurance demand from a randomized evaluation in rural Bangladesh
It is widely acknowledged that unmitigated risks provide a disincentive for otherwise optimal investments in modern farm inputs. Index insurance provides a means for managing risk without the burdens of asymmetric information and high transaction costs that plague traditional indemnity-based crop insurance programs. Yet many index insurance programs that have been piloted around the world have met with rather limited success, so the potential for insurance to foster more intensive agricultural production has yet to be realized. This study assesses both the demand for and the effectiveness of an innovative index insurance product designed to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh manage risk ...
Agricultural extension and rural advisory services: What have we learned? What’s next?
Agricultural extension provides the critical connection from agricultural innovation and discovery to durable improvements at scale, as farmers and other actors in the rural economy learn, adapt, and innovate with new technologies and practices. However, lack of capacity and performance of agricultural extension in lower- and middle-income countries is an ongoing concern. Research on agricultural extension and advisory services (in short, extension) has been an integral part of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) since its inception. This brief synthesizes key findings from research funded by and linked to PIM from 2012 to 2021, presenting lessons learned ...
Gender research in the CGIAR research program on policies, institutions, and markets in 2018 and 2019
This report analyses PIM’s 391 peer-reviewed 2018 and 20191 publications. We highlight key gender findings and discuss the challenges faced by researchers in doing gender analysis, with a view to documenting lessons learned and improving practices. It is hoped that the gaps and strengths identified in this report will be useful inputs for future research under PIM and One CGIAR.
