Kristin Davis, Guush Berhane, Catherine Mthinda, Ephraim Nkonya WEBINAR East Africa Perspectives on the Book: Agricultural Extension – Global Status and Performance in Selected Countries OCT 28, 2020 - 03:30 PM TO 05:00 PM SAST

1. Virt ual Event
East Africa Perspectives on the Book:
Agricultural Extension
Global Status and Performance in
Selected Countries
October 28, 2020
03:30 PM – 05:00 PM SAST

2. Agricultural Extension:
Global Status and Performance
in Selected Countries
Dr. Kristin Davis
Development Strategy and Governance Division
International Food Policy Research Institute
East Africa Perspectives on the Book | 28 Oct 2020
Overview

3. Why? Extension’s role in rural transformation
Drivers or
Characteristics
Extension
Performance
Outcomes and
Impact
Frame Conditions
2

4. Why? What’s special about this book? 3 gaps
1. Lack of common framework – no comparison
2. Global status update
3. Performance data linking different assessment levels using primary and
secondary data
3

5. What? Contents
 Global overview
comparing extension at
national and regional
levels
 Performance
assessment, impact
evaluation in selected
countries
 Lessons and policy
insights
4

6. Findings: Governance
 Increasingly pluralism
 Public-sector roles
 Lack of policies to guide
extension governance
Institutional affiliation of providers of
agricultural advisory services in Uganda
9

7. Findings: Capacity
 >1 million extension
agents today
 > half have a 2-3-year
diploma or less
 Little on-the-job training or
continuing education
Global share of agents by education
level by type of organization (%)
10

8. Findings: Management
 Agents carry a heavy work burden
 Limited or no incentives, rewards
Frontline workers’ time allocation during
planting season in Malawi (%)
11

9. Findings: Advisory
methods
 Traditional approaches
(demonstrations, group
meetings) continue
 Market-oriented, digital
approaches rapidly
increasing
Agricultural extension service methodologies in
Argentina, Chile, and Colombia (%)
12

10.  Coverage – Brazil
 Adoption – Ethiopia
 Access – Malawi
Findings: Performance of
selected countries
Households in Malawi receiving agriculture or
nutrition advice from any source (%)
5

11.  Increased coverage for women
and youth
 Increased number and proportion
of women field staff
Findings: Performance –
access to services
Access to extension services by gender
and age group in Malawi (%)
6

12. Conclusions
 Extension policy is the base to build on
 Innovative financing is required
 Pluralism implies need for coordination
 Capacities needed for producers to identify and prioritize needs
 Upskilling for extension staff
 M&E is critical
 Digital technology holds promise

13. In remembrance of Burt Swanson and Ephraim
Chirwa
• Thanks to Gary Alex, Sonia
Maria Pessoa Pereira
Bergamasco, Ricardo Serra
Borsatto, Carolina Rios
Thomson Ephraim Nkonya,
Nana Afranaa Kwapon,
Edward Kato, Patience
Rwamigisa, Bernard
Bashaasha, Margaret
Najjingo Mangheni, Guush
Berhane, Gashaw Tadesse
Abate, Thomas Woldu
Assefa, John M. Ulimwengu,
Catherine Mthinda, Andrea
Bohn, Burton Swanson,
John Preissing, Sergio
Ardila, Francisco Aguirre,
Julián Buitrón, Mahika
Shishodia, Sam Oeurn Ke,
Pham Hoang Ngan
7

14. Agricultural Extension in Ethiopia:
Guush Berhane*, Catherine Ragasa*, Gashaw T. Abate*, Thomas W. Assefa**
*International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
**University of Georgia (UGA)
Agriculture Extension: Global Status and Performance in Selected Countries
Virtual Book Launch | October 28, 2020
Progress, challenges, and Impact

15. Presentation outline
 Policy and context
 Progress; Challenges; Impacts
 Three key messages

16. Ethiopia’s extension system: policy and context
 Ethiopia: among few countries in Africa that heavily invested on agriculture
(ADLI, PASDEP, GTPs).
 Agriculture extension received significant attention - boosting crop
productivity.
… design was on advisory and training services;
… practice on input delivery & adoption.
 Registered two decades of sustained growth attributable to growth in
agriculture.

17. Ethiopia: One of largest farmer-extension agent ratio
 More than 65,000 DAs, (one DA
per 476 (or, 21 DAs per 10,000)
farmers)
 More than 15,000 FTCs (one in
each kebele), 7,000 SMS
(woreda), 4,000 Supervisors
(regional offices)
 Figures in 2016/2017 show a
higher ratio of 43 development
agents per 10,000 farmers
21
16
6
4
3
2
0 5 10 15 20 25
Ethiopia
China
Indonesia
Tanzania
Nigeria
India
Source: Davis et al. (2010)

18. Substantial progress: Coverage - number of holders, area, …
-
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000
12,000,000
2004/05
2005/06
2006/07
2007/08
2008/09
2009/10
2010/11
2012/13
2013/14
advisory (number of holders)
Holders (under ext-pkg)
Hectares (under ext-pkg)
≅ 11 million holders had access to services
(about 80% of farmers) by 2014;
≅ 4 million ha under the “extension
package”
≅ Package was not well spelled out.
Source: CSA (2014)

19. Substantial progress: fertilizer adoption & intensification
Source: CSA (2018)

20.  Challenges: quantity than quality, weak linkages with R&D
 Operates within a complex & inflexible public bureaucratic structures – limited innovation.
 DAs are overburdened, under resourced, and at receiving end of gov’t bureaucracy!
… work with poorly resourced FTCs (farmer training centers).
 Functions in a widely dispersed geography, heterogenous livelihoods; but services remain
overly standardized and inflexible.
 Weak linkages with research and innovation centers

21. Overburdened DA : A typical work week for DA in Ethiopia

22. Technology/practices
% of DAs promoted the
technology during 2015/16
Was the topic (technology)
requested by farmers? (%,
1=Yes)
Land preparation 98.6 57.0
Seed selection 97.0 60.0
Row planting 98.0 53.0
Fertilizer application 98.2 57.4
Crop management 97.2 58.4
Post-harvest handling 96.0 57.4
Natural resource
conservation
96.4 49.2
Climate smart practices 85.2 53.3
Market linkages 75.5 57.7
Overly standardized services:
Technologies promoted not necessarily demand driven
Source: Digital Green DA Survey (2016).

23. Impacts: Technology adoption, productivity increases
 Data: AGP data 2011 & 2013
 Access to extension system significantly increases adoption of modern
inputs.
 Extension services do not directly increase the level of productivity.
 Use of modern inputs—including fertilizers, improved seeds, and irrigation
contributes to productivity increases.

24. Three key messages
 Overburdened DAs, under resourced FTCs, overly standardized services, and
limited innovations are key challenges to be tackled going forward.
 Empirical results: productivity increases in Ethiopia are not knowledge-driven
and that achieving additional productivity increases will be difficult without
investing in knowledge-based extension services.
 Going forward, given resource constraints, important choices ahead between
quality and quantity of services provided – continue to widely but thinly
spreading resources, or focus on improving quality.

25. Thank you!
guush.berhane@cgiar.org

26. Performance of Extension System in Malawi and
Way Forward
Catherine Mthinda, Catherine Ragasa
East Africa Perspectives on the Book | October 28, 2020

27. This presentation briefly covers:
• Policy context
• Sources of data
• Findings – positive trends and areas for improvement
• Some issues on supply side and demand side of
service provision
• Some take away messages
27

28. Policy context
• National Extension Policy (2001) – with emphasis on pluralistic, demand-
driven, and inclusive extension services
• Implementing a decentralized district agriculture extension service system
(DAESS)
• Supported by a number of donor supported programs such as:
• Agriculture Sector Wide Approach (ASWAp), which is a multi-donor trust fund;
• USAID funded five year project – Strengthening Agricultural and Nutrition Extension (SANE),
• European Union funded five-year KULIMA
o Many international NGO projects with a component on extension services
• Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) – heavy focus on fertilizer subsidy, with
little budget for extension services,
• National Agricultural Policy (2016-2020), extension is a major part
• National Agriculture Investment Plan (2018-2023), extension is a major part
28

29. Sources of data
• IFPRI/Flanders’ monitoring of agricultural
extension services project:
o Nationally representative panel household and community
surveys (3000 HH) (2016, 2018)
o Census and monitoring of 121 state and non-state extension
service providers in 15 districts (2017)
o 531 lead farmers interviewed in randomly-sampled communities
(2017)
o In-depth interviews with 30 service providers and 71 extension
workers (2017)
o 55 Focus group discussions (dots on map) (2017, 2019)
• USAID – SANE’s census of decentralized district
agric extension service system’s structures in 10
USAID/Feed the Future project districts
29

30. Findings: Positive trends
High coverage of extension services, comparable to Ethiopia and much higher than
Uganda
Improvements in access to extension services for both women and men (and both
youth and non-youth)
Consistently high subjective ratings from farmers on the usefulness of extension
services
More diversity in extension messages  more information regarding markets, climate
change and nutrition
Greater use of cost-effective tools radio and community/group approaches
Greater crop diversification  away from maize or tobacco, more into legumes
(although the rate of change is slow) 30

31. % of Households receiving agriculture advice
76
39
53
39
48
32
9
25
77
48
58
48
58
35
8
5
16
0
20
40
60
80
100
%ofsamplehouseholds
a. In the last 2 years
2016 2018
53
21
31
21
25
14
2
11
54
27
34
27
36
17
1 1
5
0
20
40
60
80
100
b. In the last 12 months
2016 2018
Collected only in 2018Collected only in 2018 31

32. 47
41
28
15 14
11 10
7 7 5 4 4 4
2 2 2
0
20
1 0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
%ofsamplehouseholds
2016 2018
Collected only in
2018
Access to
extension
services
by method/approach
32

33. Improving gender parity in access to extension services
57 57
68
76
60 59
71
78
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Young
women
Old women Young men Old men
%ofindividualrespondentsbygroup
a. Access to agricultural advice in last 2
years
2016 2018
34 34
44
55
38
35
47
57
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Young women Old women Young men Old men
%ofindividualrespondentsbygroup
b. Access to agricultural advice in last 12
months
2016 2018
33

34. Findings: National trends revealing
areas for improvements
• Extension services led to greater technology
awareness
• But, this did not translate to great adoption of
technologies
• Adoption of most management practices remains
very low
• Large gap between technology awareness and
adoption
• Farm productivity and commercialization remain
low
34

35. Large gap between awareness and adoption
(2018)
49
59
82
70
46
79
50
66
32
12
6 6
82
41
8
49
6
14
6
1
0
20
40
60
80
100
%ofhouseholds
Awareness Adoption
35

36. Decreasing productivity in major crops
1343 1854
1052
2851
892
996
2456
847 909
1227
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
kg/ha
Yield (kg/ha), rainy season
2016 2018
Decreasing productivity in major crops
36

37. Level of commercialization for major food crops not improving
7
28
9
37
28
16 19
37
78
92
66
5
30
4
26
21
6
18
38
63
90 91
0
20
40
60
80
100%ofproduction
Rainy season, 2016 and 2018 comparison
2016 2018
37

38. Supply side
38

39. Supply side of extension service provision (2017)
• Growing pluralism of extension service provision (121 various organizations working in 15 districts)
• In a typical district, there are about 13 service providers on average (but ranges from 6 in
Chiradzulu to 25 in Balaka and 35 in Lilongwe)
1
5
31 31
11
6
11
6
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Government (DADO) Trusts and semi-
government
(ADMARC, Forestry
Dept., ARET,
community devpt.
office)
International NGO Local NGO or
community programs
Church based
organization
Farmer-based
organization
(NASFAM, FUM, etc)
Private company
(Dumisani, Toleza,
FINCA, NBS Bank)
Media (community
radio stations, Farm
Radio Trust, etc)
Percent(%)
39

40. Human capacity
Very difficult to get reliable data, but some patterns emerge:
• 1:1 ratio of govt. technical staff to non-govt. technical staff
(aggregate)
• 2:1 ratio of govt. frontline workers to non-govt. field officers
(aggregate)
• All non-government service providers work with govt. extension
agents
• Farmer to extension agent ratio is similar or better than in many
countries in SSA, but worse than that of Ethiopia and Kenya
• Gender balance, is good but can be further improved
• Most staff do not have yearly trainings, an area for improvement.
40

41. Demand side
41

42. Demand-side approaches need to be
strengthened
Farmers reported high ratings on
the usefulness of extension
services . . .
but the percentage of farmers
requesting or demanding
information was very low and
decreased over time from 12% in
2016 to 4% in 2018
While radio coverage is wide,
only a few households are a
member of listening clubs or
ICT hubs (2%) or have used
call-in services (1%) at
national level
Greater community
awareness and sensitization
of these demand-side
services will be crucial so that
more people can benefit from
them.
Capacity of these ICT-based
demand-side mechanisms
needs to be strengthened
42

43. Takeaway messages
1. GO BEYOND INPUT METRICS
 BOLD PERFORMANCE TARGET
2. INVEST IN IMPLEMENTATION AND
COORDINATION CAPACITY &
INCENTIVE TOWARDS THAT TARGET
. . . OFTEN, IT IS NOT THE DELIVERY TOOL OR
APPROACH THAT IS THE PROBLEM, BUT THE
CAPACITY TO IMPLEMENT AND SCALE THEM
UP EFFECTIVELY
3. FOCUS ON PRIORITY VALUE CHAINS
(PUBLIC, PRIVATE, NGOS WORKING
TOGETHER ON SET TARGETS FOR THESE
VALUE CHAINS)
43

44. Takeaway messages
5. INTENSIFY CAPACITY
STRENGTHENING AT GRASSROOT
ORGANIZATIONS LEVEL
6. ICT METHODS SHOULD BE PART
OF THE PACKAGE OF DIVERSE
EXTENSION APPROACHES
4. IMPROVE CONTENT AND QUALITY
OF EXTENSION MESSAGING TO
INDUCE BEHAVIORAL CHANGE
AMONG FARMERS TOWARDS
ADOPTION
(FARM DEMO)
44

45. 45

46. Uganda Agricultural Advisory
Services
Performance and Challenges
Nkonya E.a, N.A. Kwapongb, E. Katoa, P. Rwamigisac, B. Bashaashad, and M.
Manghenid
a International Food Policy Research Institute
b University of Ghana
c Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries, Uganda
d Makerere University, Uganda
East Africa Perspectives on the Book | October 28, 2020

47. Outline
 What does this study contribute to literature and Advisory service policies
and development strategies?
 Lessons learnt from Uganda Agricultural Advisory services changes,
performance & challenges over the last 100 years
 Research approach and data
 Results
 Conclusions and policy implications

48. Importance of study to literature & policy and development
strategy dialogue
 Contribution to:
oLiterature: Use of data collected from extension and advisory services
to analyze the effectiveness of traditional and new advisory services
oPolicy and development strategies: New insight lessons on the
effectiveness of traditional and new advisory services over the last 100
years
 Uganda currently at initial stages of implementing new reforms. So do
other countries in SSA.
oResults of the study will help to provide empirical evidence to design
better policies and strategies.

49. Century-long policy and development strategies & lessons
learnt
Period Agricultural extension approach Lessons
1920-56 Focus on export crop, forceful enforcement
of technology adoption & regulations (kiboko)
Forcing farmers to adopt ineffective and
unsustainable
1956-63 Use of progressive farmers – given advisory
services & input credit to serve as examples
Other farmers perceived progressive farmers as
privileged and out of touch
1964-71 Provision of advisory services on non-export
start, targeting smallholder farmers
Coordinated provision of advisory key to success
1971-80 No clear policy and strategy Disorganization led to undoing progress made after
independence
1981-91 Recovery – MAAIF formed, training and
better links with research
Coordination is key to effectiveness
1992-98 Design institutional reforms, decentralization Train & Visit, low capacity at local level
1998-
2009
Implementation of institution reforms pluralistic & demand-driven approach effective, but
works if there strong local capacity & coordinated
national policy & strategy
2009-19 Pluralistic agricultural extension service
delivery system
Coordination key to success: Single Spine
Agricultural Extension System” (SSES) formed

50. Research approach &
data Use both:
o household survey LSMS-ISA 2016-17
o Nationally representative
o Agric. Extension providers – 2007-08
o 208 extension agents interviewed.
Institutional affiliation:

52. Topics promoted by Institutional affiliation
Topics promoted Government NAADS NGO
Percent reporting
Improved seed varieties 85.3 81.5 61.5
Agro chemicals 65.4 62.9 61.5
Herbicides 28.2 44.4 19.2
Plant protection techniques 20.5 16.7 19.2
Organic fertilizer 15.4 20.4 11.5
Chemical fertilizers 10.0 11.1 7.7
Agroforestry 8.3 11.1 0.0
Soil conservation technologies 0.6 1.9 7.7

54. Type of messages received – as reported
by farmers (LSMS survey)

55. Rural service performance across zones

56. Drivers of effectiveness of provision of advisory services
Variable % of farmers served % of female served
Female agent NS 5.50**
Level of education (cf certificate)
- Diploma NS NS
- Bachelor degree -8.12*** NS
- Post-graduate degree -9.75** NS
Institutional affiliation (cf Government)
- NAADS NS 6.40***
- NGO 4.33* 6.23*
Performance of rural services (cf Poor)
- Medium performance -4.93** NS
- Best performance -5.90**
NAADS x female agent NS -6.29*
NGO x female agent 21.98*** 7.63*

57. Policy implications
 There is strong relationship between effectiveness and institutional
affiliation – underscoring the importance of pluralistic extension services
 Female AEA are few but more effective in reaching women and poor
farmers than male AEA, especially when serving under NAADS or NGOs
o need to increase number of female AEA, especially in remote areas,
where poverty is concentrated
 AEA capacity to provide advisory on non-production technologies,
oTraining of agricultural extension agents serving under the Single
Spine Agricultural Extension System is required to increase AEA
knowledge on SLM, marketing and postharvest knowledge

58. Thank you very much
for your attention
For more information, Visit:
IFPRI Malawi website- massp.ifpri.info
Twitter- @IFPRIMalawi
IFPRI Ethiopia website- essp.ifpri.info
Twitter- @IFPRI_ESSP