Policy and Management Work within International Agricultural Research

The diversity of players in the field of agricultural (and, more generally, rural) policy and management research is sketched in a global overview of relevant research resources, and the small but important part played by the CGIAR Centres in this is explored, particularly where it has maximum value in terms of international public goods, and for strategic links to other parts of the CGIAR portfolio. The patchy and often slender (and perhaps diminishing in specific cases) capacity of national agricultural policy research and analysis units in the less‐developed world to deliver the needed research products is examined.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Environmental Issues and Farming in Developing Countries

Formerly a rich-county preoccupation, dealing more explicitly with environmental concerns around agriculture is becoming a mainstream concern for developing countries. Concerns arise with all the major resources underpinning farming, such as land and water which are selectively reviewed here but most attention is concentrated on the soil resource and carbon sequestration possibilities. The results of some environmental interventions constitute public goods at variously local, regional and global levels and thus provide a rationale for potential engagement for governments and development agencies.Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

Drought: Economic Consequences and Policies for Mitigation Global Overview

The natural variation in climate around the world means that periods of severe shortfall of rainfall are inevitable, and some times occur on a large geographical scale. Human settlements have adapted to this reality in many different ways, including the development of agricultural systems that feature variously robust aspects in the face of drought. As climates change under the influence of modified atmospheric composition, it seems likely that many parts of the world will face increased incidence of drought and thus more challenging tasks for farm managers, managers of non- farm enterprises that are sensitive to drought, national policy makers and, last but not least, households in rural areas that are close to subsistence levels even in non-drought seasons. The agricultural economics profession must continue to contribute to better dealing with all these challenges.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Institutional Reforms for Getting an Agricultural Knowledge System to Play Its Role in Economic Growth

While alarmists shriek the crisis of accelerating soil erosion and declining water quality as the major impediment to the future of global agriculture in supplying the needs of humanity, the argument here is that, although resource degradation is indeed a threat to achievement of satisfactory crop yields over the next several decades, the main threat is not degradation of natural resources. Rather, it is degradation of the capacity of societies, particularly those in the less-developed countries, to develop the knowledge embodied in people, technology and institutions necessary to meet the challenge of higher yields and intensified agricultural production. Dealing with this threat of degradation of knowledge institutions and resources must be an important focus of economic development policy in agrarian societies. In short, the agricultural knowledge and information systems (AKISs) serving the developing world must be put in effective and stable shape to deliver the needful.

How to make agricultural extension demand-driven?: The case of India's agricultural extension policy

"Many countries have recognized the need to revive agricultural advisory or extension services (the terms are used interchangeably here) as a means of using agriculture as an engine of pro-poor growth; reaching marginalized, poor, and female farmers; and addressing new challenges, such as environmental degradation and climate change. In spite of ample experience with extension reform worldwide, identifying the reform options most likely to make extension more demand-driven remains a major challenge. The concept of demand-driven services implies making extension more responsive to the needs of all farmers, including women and those who are poor and marginalized. It also implies making extension more accountable to farmers and, as a consequence, more effective. This essay discusses various options for providing and financing agricultural advisory services, which involve the public and private sectors as well as a third sector comprising nongovernmental organizations and farmer-based organizations. We review the market and state failures, and the “community” failures (failures of non-governmental and farmer-based organizations) inherent in existing models of providing and financing agricultural extension services and then outline strategies to address those failures and make extension demand-driven. Then we examine India's Policy Framework for Agricultural Extension, which has demand-driven extension as one of its major objectives, and review available survey information on the state of extension in India. We conclude that although the framework proposes a wide range of strategies to make agricultural extension demand-driven, it is less specific in addressing the challenges inherent in those strategies. Moreover, it remains unclear whether the strategies proposed in the framework will be able to address one of the major problems identified by farm household surveys: access to agricultural extension." from Authors' AbstractDemand-driven agricultural advisory services, Extension reform, Agricultural extension work, Agricultural policy, Pro-poor growth, Farmers, Environmental degradation, Climate change, Public-private sector cooperation, Non-governmental organizations,

Rural extension services

The authors analyze the considerations that lead policymakers to undertake extension investments as a key public responsibility, as well as the complex set of factors and intra-agency incentives that explain why different extension systems'performance vary. The authors provide a conceptual framework outlining farmers'demand for information, the welfare economic characterizations of extension services, and the organizational and political attributes that govern the performance of extension systems. They use the conceptual framework to examine several extension modalities and to analyze their likely and actual effectiveness. Specifically, the modalities reviewed include"training and visit"extension, decentralized systems,"fee-for-service"and privatized extension, and farmer-field-schools. The authors also discuss methodological issues pertaining to the assessment of extension outcomes and review the empirical literature on extension impact. They emphasize the efficiency gains that can come from locally decentralized delivery systems with incentive structures based largely on private provision that in most poorer countries is still publicly-funded. In wealthier countries, and for particular higher income farmer groups, extension systems will likely evolve into fee-for-service organizations.Decentralization,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Environmental Economics&Policies,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Economics&Finance,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,ICT Policy and Strategies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Knowledge Economy

Draft Observations on the Impact Presentations

Comments by Jock Andersen of the World Bank Operations Evaluation Department on impact assessment presentations at International Centers Week, October 1997. The presentations were made by the CGIAR Impact Assessment and Evaluation Group (IAEG) - its first annual report- and by the sixteen CGIAR centers on the impact of their research and activities, and methods used in making the assessment.Andersen was a member of the team responsible for the CGIAR impact study of 1984-86. He applied the standards of the World Bank OED to the present reports. His comments addressed the quality and constructiveness of the IAEG studies, the varying capacity of different centers to conduct such self-assessments, and the place of impact assessment in their activities and organizational cultures

Progress Statement on Impact Study

Progress report on the CGIAR impact study by Study Director Jock Andersen. The report lists the Advisory Committee, chaired by Frank Press, President of the US National Academy of Sciences, and describes initial steps taken and planned. The terms of reference of the study are attached. Agenda document, CGIAR meeting May 1984

The rise and fall of training and visit extension : an Asian mini-drama with an African epilogue

The paper reviews the origins and evolution of the Training and Visit (T&V) extension system, which was promoted by the World Bank in 1975-98 in over 50 developing countries. The discussion seeks to clarify the context within which the approach was implemented, and to analyze the causes for its lack of sustainability and its ultimate abandonment. The paper identifies some of the challenges faced by the T&V approach as being typical of a large public extension system, where issues of scale, interaction with the agricultural research systems, inability to attribute benefits, weak accountability, and lack of political support tend to lead to incentive problems among staff and managers of extension, and limited budgetary resources. The different incentives and outlook of domestic stakeholders and external donor agencies are also reviewed. The main cause of the T&V system's disappearance is attributed to the incompatibility of its high recurrent costs with the limited budgets available domestically, leading to fiscal unsustainability. The paper concludes with some lessons that apply to donor-driven public extension initiatives, and more generally to rural development fads. The role of timely, independent, and rigorous evaluative studiesis specifically highlighted.Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Rural Poverty Reduction,ICT Policy and Strategies,Banks&Banking Reform

Promises and realities of community-based agricultural extension

In view of the market failures and the state failures inherent in providing agricultural extension, community-based approaches, which involve farmers‘ groups, have gained increasing importance in recent years as a third way to provide this service. The paper discusses the conceptual underpinnings of community-based extension approaches, highlights theoretical and practical challenges inherent in their design, and assesses the evidence available so far on their performance. The paper reviews both quantitative and qualitative studies, focusing on three examples that contain important elements of community-based extension: the National Agricultural Advisory Services program of Uganda, the agricultural technology management agency model of India, and the farmer field school approach. The review finds that in the rather few cases where performance has been relatively carefully studied, elite capture was identified as a major constraint. Other challenges that empirical studies found include a limited availability of competent service providers, deep-seated cultural attitudes that prevent an effective empowerment of farmers, and difficulties in implementing farmers‘ control of service providers‘ contracts. The paper concludes that, just as for the state and the market, communities can also fail in extension delivery. Hence, the challenge for innovative approaches in agricultural extension is to identify systems that use the potential of the state, the market, and communities to create checks and balances to overcome the failures inherent in all of them.agricultural extension, Agricultural technology, community-based development, empowerment of farmers, innovative approaches, market failures, National Agricultural Advisory Services program,