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Accelerating technical change through video-mediated agricultural extension: Evidence from Ethiopia

Author: Abate, Gashaw T.

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published:

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13:

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? Second, is video-mediated extension targeted at both spouses of the household more effective than when only targeted at the (typically male) household head? Third, how cost-effective is a video-mediated approach to extension provision? The study explores these questions with a randomized controlled trial designed to evaluate the video-mediated approach as applied to three priority crops (teff, wheat, maize) and three technologies (row planting, precise seeding rates, and urea dressing). The trial was implemented in 347 kebeles (village clusters) during the 2017 meher (rainy) season in Ethiopia’s four most agriculturally important regional states. Analysis of data from our surveys of 2,422 households and 896 extension agents indicates that the video-mediated approach is more effective than the conventional approach in achieving several key outcomes. Specifically, we find that videomediated extension reaches a wider audience than the conventional approach and leads to higher levels of agricultural knowledge and uptake of technologies in those kebeles randomly assigned to the program. While our results do point to greater participation and greater knowledge of female spouses in kebeles where both male and female spouses were targeted by the program, we do not find clear evidence that the more inclusive approach translated into higher uptake of the subject technologies and practices. Finally, we find that the video-mediated approach becomes less costly as the scale of operation increases.

Video-based agricultural extension

Author: Bernard, Tanguy

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2016-10-28

Total Pages: 4

ISBN-13:

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Since 2014, Digital Green and the Government of Ethiopia have been piloting a project to introduce a community-centric video approach to agricultural extension provision.1 Digital Green’s approach has the potential to transform extension in Ethiopia via a fairly simple impact pathway. By providing a cost-effective ap-proach to information dissemination, video-based extension can in-crease the adoption rate of productivity-enhancing agricultural technologies and practices by smallholder farmers, including in-creased adoption by women. The Digital Green approach could also improve data collection and analysis. This note, based on a more detailed project report,2 summarizes findings and recom-mendations that point the way to expanded use of video-based ag-ricultural extension.

Challenges and opportunities in implementing video-based extension approaches targeting women farmers: An implementer’s perspective

Author: Rwamigisa, Patience B.

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2024-01-16

Total Pages: 5

ISBN-13:

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Agricultural extension services play an important role in agricultural development. Timely and reliable information services are key to improving farmers’ knowledge of strategies to increase agricultural productivity, assisting them in accessing inputs and credit, providing early warning against pests and other shocks, and offering them critical advice on climate action. However, equitable access to knowledge, information, and technology remains challeng ing in most countries. This inequity is even more pronounced among farmers from marginalized groups, including women farmers, resulting in their limited access to climate resilience-enhancing technologies and practices. This note summarizes findings from implementers of participatory video-based extension interventions in India, Kenya, and Uganda. The findings suggest that videos targeting women farmers can reach them effectively. Still, participa tory video-based extension should be accompanied by group discussions, providing complementary inputs, and dismantling other barriers that impede women’s agency and achievements in agriculture.

Accelerating Technical Change Through Video-mediated Agricultural Extension

Author: Gashaw Tadesse Abate

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Agricultural extension messages using video on portable devices

Author: Van Campenhout, Bjorn

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2016-11-24

Total Pages: 24

ISBN-13:

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To feed a growing population, agricultural productivity needs to increase dramatically. Agricultural extension information, with its public, non-rival nature, is generally undersupplied, and public provision remains challenging. In this research, we explore the effectiveness of alternative modes of agricultural extension information delivery. We test whether simple agricultural extension video messages delivered through Android tablets increase knowledge of recommended practices in seed selection, storage, and handling among a sample of potato farmers in southwestern Uganda. Using a field experiment with ex ante matching in a factorial design, we find that showing agricultural extension videos significantly affects farmers’ knowledge. However, our results suggest impact pathways that go beyond simply replicating what was shown in the video. Video messages may also trigger a process of abstraction, whereby farmers apply insights gained in one context to a different context. Alternatively, video messages may activate knowledge farmers already posses but, for some reason, do not use.

The state of agricultural extension services in Ethiopia and their contribution to agricultural productivity

Author: Berhane, Guush

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2018-05-10

Total Pages: 33

ISBN-13:

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We document the state of the extension system in Ethiopia and review the empirical evidence on the links between the key extension services provided, adoption of modern inputs, and agricultural productivity. In particular, we take stock of the provision of agricultural extension services, synthesize the evidence on the performance of the system, and suggest ways that it might contribute to accelerating agricultural growth and poverty reduction in the years ahead.

Agricultural extension and rural advisory services: What have we learned? What’s next?

Author: Davis, Kristin E.

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2021-10-29

Total Pages: 14

ISBN-13:

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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 and a vision for the future of extension. A list of all PIM-related extension and advisory services research is provided at the end. Designing and implementing effective provision of extension is complex, and efforts to strengthen extension services often fall into a trap of adopting “best practice” blueprint approaches that are not well-tailored to local conditions. An expansive literature examines the promises and pitfalls of common approaches, including training-and-visit extension systems, farmer field schools, and many others (Anderson and Feder 2004; Anderson et al. 2006; Waddington and White 2014; Scoones and Thompson 2009). To understand extension systems and build evidence for what works and where, the “best-fit” framework, a widely recognized approach developed by Birner and colleagues (2009) and adapted by Davis and Spielman (2017), offers a simple impact chain approach (Figure 1). The framework focuses on a defined set of extension service characteristics that affect performance: governance structures and funding; organizational and management capacities and cultures; methods; and community engagement — all of which are subject to external factors such as the policy environment, agroecological conditions, and farming-system heterogeneity. To enhance extension performance and, ultimately, a wide range of outcomes and impacts, new and innovative interventions can be applied and adapted within this set of extension characteristics.

Women’s empowerment, agricultural extension, and digitalization: Disentangling information and role model effects in rural Uganda

Author: Lecoutere, Els

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published:

Total Pages: 61

ISBN-13:

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In many developing countries, agricultural extension services are generally biased towards men, with information targeted mainly to male members of a farming household and in formats that are rarely tailored to female members. Nevertheless, female farmers may also benefit from such services as this may affect their ability to make informed decisions, resulting in increased farm productivity, household income, and welfare. We conduct a gendered field experiment among maize-farming households in eastern Uganda to test whether video-enabled extension messaging affects outcomes related to maize cultivation. In this experiment, men, women, and couples are shown randomly assigned videos about improved maize management practices in which male, female, or both male and female actors are featured. We first vary exposure to the videos by gender to test the effects of changes in intra-household information asymmetries, investigating whether involving women as recipients of information increases their ability to participate in household decision-making, and thus their involvement in household production choices. We then vary exposure to the gender of the actors in the videos to test for role-model effects, exploring whether involving women as information messengers challenges the idea that decision-making is a predominantly male domain, in turn affecting women’s outcomes. Results show that targeting women with information increases their knowledge about improved maize management practices, their role in agricultural decision-making, the adoption of recommended practices and inputs, production-related outcomes, and the quantity of maize women sell to the market. Results for the role-model effects are mixed, and are evident more in joint household outcomes than individual women’s outcomes. Overall, our findings suggest that in the context of our study, extension efforts aimed at directly addressing intra-household information asymmetries may be a first-best means of empowering women in agriculture. Other, more subtle means that seek to influence perceptions and norms about gendered roles in the household may not generate expected effects or work via expected impact pathways, though they remain worth further exploration.

Learning through the eyes of others

Author: Salm, Mundie

Publisher: CTA - Access Agriculture - IGRA

Published: 2018-11-30

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13: 9290816309

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This publication comes six years after Access Agriculture was created to enable south-south exchange and access to quality audio-visual training materials for smallholder farmers, herders and fishers, and other users of natural resources. It brings together some of the varied experiences of Access Agriculture’s many partners in producing, translating, distributing and using training videos. These experiences have been gathered from reports, academic research, blogs, stories and interviews with people from Africa, Asia and Europe – who all have in common a passion for improving agriculture. It also draws on a series of stories published in a sister publication from CTA, “A Passion for Video”, that were written in 2015 during Access Agriculture’s conference to celebrate its first three years.