Suchergebnisse

The lead farmer (LF) approach has been implemented and heavily promoted nationwide in Malawi since 2009 to support government extension workers and accelerate technology dissemination. Earlier reports have shown that donor-funded projects in Malawi widely adopted the LF approach, indicating positive roles and contributions of LFs. However, national data show persistently low rates of adoption of management practices being promoted by the LFs, prompting this study to look closely at the nationwide implementation and effectiveness of the LF approach. Specifically, we model the effects of farmers' interaction with and exposure to LFs and farmers' access to LFs' advice on farmers' awareness of and adoption of several promoted technologies and management practices. We use data from 531 randomly selected LFs linked to panel data from 2,800 farming households and, using correlated random effects, model the effectiveness of the LF approach on technology awareness and adoption. This is complemented by 55 focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with agricultural extension development officers (AEDOs) and service providers. Our results point to two major conclusions. First, LFs support and assist AEDOs in their work, especially in organizing community meetings and farm demonstrations, and are also an important bridge between farmers and AEDOs. But LFs complement AEDOs' work rather than substitute for it. In communities without strong AEDOs and community leaders to work with and monitor them, LFs were not active or performed at a substandard level. Second, results show limited coverage and weak implementation and effectiveness of the LF approach at the national level. Only 13 percent of farmers reported receiving agricultural advice from an LF in the last two years, and only 20 percent reported having interacted with an LF. Our econometric models also consistently show neither the farmers' exposure or interaction with LFs nor farmers' access to LFs' advice had an effect on awareness of and adoption of the major ...

IFPRI3; CRP2; ISI ; DSGD; PIM ; PR ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

As COVID-19 began spreading globally in early 2020, it quickly went beyond major cities to affect rural areas in much of the world. In low-income countries, rural health systems have been overloaded and periodic lockdowns and other restrictions have driven down incomes. Governments have responded to the economic turmoil with an array of social protection programs, and through public health campaigns pushing both safe behaviors and vaccination and providing treatment. As our 2019 IFPRI Policy Brief shows, ensuring high-quality governance and provision of services in rural areas is critical for livelihoods and economic development — and thus central to COVID-19 policy responses. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI4; CRP4; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance ; DSGD; DGO; A4NH ; CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH)

A number of initiatives are being implemented in response to this identified need. Among them, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) implemented a five-year project (Strengthening Agricultural and Nutrition Extension [SANE]), and the European Union currently funds a five-year project (KULIMA), both of which primarily focus on extension services and their links to agricultural research. Malawi's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development (MoAIWD) has also requested a study to look closely at the state of extension services provision, with the intent to further strengthen it to contribute to food security, economic growth, and other development goals. This has led to the three-year project (Assessing and Enhancing the Capacity, Performance, and Impact of the Pluralistic Agricultural Extension System in Malawi), funded by the government of Flanders and the German Agency for International Development, led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). This chapter summarizes the assessment data collected from this IFPRI project, synthesizes its research papers, and extensively reviews relevant literature on the evaluation of extension services approaches in Malawi. The chapter is structured following the best-fit framework discussed in Birner et al. (2009) and presented in Chapter 2. ; PR ; IFPRI4; CRP2; DCA ; DSGD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

The Government of Malawi is in the process of developing its National Agricultural Extension Strategy. Two rounds of national household and community surveys (2016, 2018), coupled with in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, were implemented to provide research evidence supporting the Strategy's development. This paper summarizes emerging trends from these surveys and monitors progress in extension services provision, players and actors in extension services provision, and evidence on the coverage and effectiveness of extension approaches. Positive trends include (1) improvements in the percentage of men and women farmers accessing extension services; (2) consistently high ratings in the perceived quality of extension services; (3) more diversity in extension messages, including more information regarding market access and nutrition; (4) greater use of cost-effective tools, such as radio programming and community or group meetings, as sources of agricultural information; and (5) greater crop diversification, although diversification outside of agriculture remains low. Four areas remain weak and need further improvements. First, information sharing among farmers, friends, and neighbors is frequent, and the coverage of those officially trained "lead farmers" (those trained specifically to promote technologies to other farmers) remains low, with only 7 percent of households reporting getting relevant advice from them. Second, while there are more "model villages" and "village agricultural committees" present, we see decreasing participation and ratings for these. Third, we observe greater awareness of promoted technologies, including conservation agriculture, pit planting, and sustainable land practices, but adoption remains very low. Fourth, we observe greater crop diversification, but farm productivity and commercialization remain low. Although we have investigated many dimensions and factors in this paper, there remain challenges and puzzles that could be further addressed in future research. These ...

Various models and approaches are being implemented to provide technical assistance and support to improve smallholder farmers' incomes and welfare in Malawi. This study evaluates the impact of farmer business schools (FBS) on crop incomes of smallholder farmers in Dedza district in central Malawi. The FBS approach, which has been implemented nationally by the Government of Malawi since 2011, consists of one year of group training and learning sessions for smallholder farmers focusing on improving market access and establishing profitable agribusiness ventures. This study used a multi-stage sampling procedure to collect data from 455 smallholder farmers: 162 FBS graduates, 84 FBS dropouts, and 209 non-participants. Using propensity score matching and difference-in-difference techniques, crop incomes from two groups of farmers were evaluated; FBS participants and FBS non-participants as well as FBS graduates and FBS dropouts. The study finds a positive yet small impact of FBS participation on crop income and production (US$20 per year on average), and no significant difference in crop income and production for farmers who graduated from FBS versus those who dropped out. Insights from the qualitative research component of this study suggest that this is primarily due to the limited financial resources smallholder farmers have to implement the agricultural techniques and business models taught in FBS. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; CRP2; MaSSP; Pluralistic Extension System in Malawi ; DSGD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

This is part of a series of descriptive reports and later in-depth analysis of the survey data. These series are aimed to provide an assessment of the state of agricultural extension and advisory services provision in Malawi in order to inform policy and reform processes and programming by the government and donors. These studies are in response to the re-quest by the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development (MoAIWD) to look closely at the state of extension services provision with the intent to further strengthen the contribution such services make to food security, economic growth, and achieving sustainable development goals. This report summarizes key findings on the state of agriculture and nutrition extension and advisory services in Malawi based on responses from household and community surveys conducted in Malawi between August and October 2016 that focused on the demand side of agricultural extension service provision and access to those services. Nationally representative samples of 3001 households and 299 communities in all districts of Malawi, except Likoma, were interviewed for the study. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; MaSSP; CRP2; Pluralistic Extension System in Malawi ; DSGD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

The International Food Policy Research Institute is leading a three-year research program to assess the state of agricultural extension and advisory services provision in Malawi in order to inform the national extension policy review and reformation of government and donor processes and programming. This research program includes a series of studies undertaken in response to a request by the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development to look closely at the state of extension services provision with the intent to further strengthen the contribution of these services to food security, economic growth, and the achievement of sustainable development goals. In this paper, we assess the flow of technical advice along the knowledge chain from scientists to farmers to identify the challenges in information provision. The advancement of social network literature has fostered the lead or contact farmer modality or farmer-to-farmer approach of information transmission. However, there is limited evidence regarding the information efficiency of this modality, and the reasons of the potential information loss. In this article, we assess information efficiency along the knowledge transmission chain from researchers to agricultural extension agents (EAs) to lead farmers (LFs) to other farmers. By asking the same set of questions about a fairly well known technology, pit planting, we construct a measure of knowledge at each node of the knowledge transmission chain. Descriptive evidence shows that the majority of information loss happens at the EA-to-LF link, and that the loss is potentially caused by limited attention of both EAs and LFs to all important details of the technology. With more evidence about the importance of knowledge for technology adoption, we suggest that EAs emphasize all crucial dimensions of an agricultural technique during demonstrations and visits in order to reduce information loss. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; CRP2; A Ensuring Sustainable food production; D Transforming Agriculture; PIM 2.2 Tracking investments in agricultural research; Pluralistic Extension System in Malawi ; DSGD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)