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Author: Ragasa, Catherine Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 64
Book Description
Low-cost and sustainable agricultural management practices are being promoted in many countries but continue to face low adoption among farmers. We tracked the awareness and adoption among farmers of a number of practices―soil cover, minimum tillage, crop rotation, intercropping, crop diversification, crop residue incorporation, pit planting, water harvesting, and organic fertilizer―in two rounds of a nationally representative rural household survey in Malawi. Survey data and focus group discussions are used to understand the factors explaining the variations in farmers’ awareness and adoption of these practices. Results show a strong positive effect of extension services receipt on farmers’ awareness of these practices but no effect on farmers’ adoption of most of the practices being promoted, except for crop residue incorporation and organic fertilizer use. Receipt of input subsidy does not influence the adoption of these practices. Both survey data and focus group discussions highlight the need for intensive and iterative engagement between service providers and farmers to fully communicate, learn, and adapt to these management practices.
Author: Ragasa, Catherine Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 64
Book Description
Low-cost and sustainable agricultural management practices are being promoted in many countries but continue to face low adoption among farmers. We tracked the awareness and adoption among farmers of a number of practices―soil cover, minimum tillage, crop rotation, intercropping, crop diversification, crop residue incorporation, pit planting, water harvesting, and organic fertilizer―in two rounds of a nationally representative rural household survey in Malawi. Survey data and focus group discussions are used to understand the factors explaining the variations in farmers’ awareness and adoption of these practices. Results show a strong positive effect of extension services receipt on farmers’ awareness of these practices but no effect on farmers’ adoption of most of the practices being promoted, except for crop residue incorporation and organic fertilizer use. Receipt of input subsidy does not influence the adoption of these practices. Both survey data and focus group discussions highlight the need for intensive and iterative engagement between service providers and farmers to fully communicate, learn, and adapt to these management practices.
Author: Ragasa, Catherine Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 45
Book Description
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 agricultural management practices being promoted. When heterogeneity and types of LFs are unpacked, results show that quality of LFs, adoption behavior of LFs, and regular training of LFs have strong and consistent effect on the awareness and adoption of most agricultural practices promoted.
Author: Catherine Ragasa Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 45
Book Description
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 agricultural management practices being promoted. When heterogeneity and types of LFs are unpacked, results show that quality of LFs, adoption behavior of LFs, and regular training of LFs have strong and consistent effect on the awareness and adoption of most agricultural practices promoted.
Author: Ragasa, Catherine Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 50
Book Description
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 include constraints on the adoption of minimal expensive inputs and low-cost management practices, constraints on the role of intensive training and labor, and understanding the drivers and factors affecting commercialization and diversification.
Author: Ignaciuk, A., Scognamillo, A. & Sitko, N. Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org. ISBN: 9251340609 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 40
Book Description
In many developing countries the adoption of climate sustainable practices is hindered by resource and risk barriers. This paper assesses the interactions between participation in Malawi’s largest public works programme, the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), and three widely promoted climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. The underlying hypotheses to be tested are: (a) that participation in the MASAF programme reduce both the budget and the risk constraints to the adoption of sustainable management practices; and (b) the joint treatment effect of MASAF and CSA increases household farms’ productivity and welfare. Drawing on three waves of national panel household survey data, we find that participation in MASAF significantly increases the probability that farm households adopt all the CSA practices considered for this study.
Author: Jules N. Pretty Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1136529276 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 292
Book Description
Continued population growth, rapidly changing consumption patterns and the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds worldwide. These pressures are likely to be substantial across Africa, where countries will have to find innovative ways to boost crop and livestock production to avoid becoming more reliant on imports and food aid. Sustainable agricultural intensification - producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts - represents a solution for millions of African farmers. This volume presents the lessons learned from 40 sustainable agricultural intensification programmes in 20 countries across Africa, commissioned as part of the UK Government's Foresight project. Through detailed case studies, the authors of each chapter examine how to develop productive and sustainable agricultural systems and how to scale up these systems to reach many more millions of people in the future. Themes covered include crop improvements, agroforestry and soil conservation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, horticulture, livestock and fodder crops, aquaculture, and novel policies and partnerships.
Author: Ragasa, Catherine Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 47
Book Description
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.
Author: Ragasa, Catherine
Author: Ragasa, Catherine
Author: Catherine Ragasa
Author: Ragasa, Catherine
Author: Catherine Ragasa
Author: Ragasa, Catherine
Author: Catherine Ragasa
Author: Ignaciuk, A., Scognamillo, A. & Sitko, N.
Author: Jules N. Pretty
Author: Ephraim Chirwa
Author: Ragasa, Catherine