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Analysing Agriculture Extension Programmes Using Randomised Control Experiments

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Agricultural Policy Analysis

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Abstract

Agricultural extension or advisory service is a method of providing scientific knowledge to farmers through farmer education. It aims at improving farm-level output while developing the management skills of the farmers. Although the literature has extensively discussed the impact evaluation of agricultural extension, there is still confusion whether correct methodologies or techniques are used to evaluate the outcomes properly. This chapter explains how the impact of a particular agricultural extension service is evaluated using the randomised control trial (RCT). The chapter outlines the basic methodology for designing impact evaluations for agricultural projects directly targeting farmers while demonstrating two empirical examples in Sri Lanka. This will help the readers to understand how the impact of agricultural extension services could be evaluated in a particular agricultural area. It also widens the knowledge of applying RCTs to evaluate any other agricultural policy or programme that is crucial to improving or redesigning an intervention in order to increase agricultural production, productivity, and profitability. Moreover, it is expected that this chapter will further motivate the use of impact evaluations to measure results in agricultural projects in various settings in other developing as well as developed countries.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The public sector delivers the vast majority of agricultural extension services in, for instance, India (Nandi and Nedumaran 2019), Bangladesh (Afrad et al. 2019), and Nigeria (Chibuzo and Chikerenma 2015; Hamisu et al. 2017).

  2. 2.

    Mass extension methods involve the use of the mass media, e.g. radio, posters, drama, television, newspapers, films, slide shows, etc., to create public awareness.

  3. 3.

    They were termed Krushi Viapthi Sevaka (KVS).

  4. 4.

    Hierarchy and accountability in extension flows downwards from the Secretary, Director General, Deputy Director, District Agricultural Extension Officers, to Agricultural Instructors, and Technical Assistants. Extension services implemented at the provincial level have their own hierarchy and accountability systems.

  5. 5.

    The Council for Agricultural Research Policy (CARP) was established in 1987 to handle agricultural research and extension simultaneously with coordinating different departments/institutions in the country. However, CARP has principally engaged with research and without progress towards extension.

  6. 6.

    Currently, more than 2500 grassroots agricultural extension workers are employed to maintain close contact with farming households; nevertheless, there is no proper mechanism to evaluate their services (Athukorala et al. 2017).

  7. 7.

    RCT design can be randomised offering of intervention, randomised promotion of intervention, or multiple treatment design.

  8. 8.

    The counterfactual is necessary for comparing actual outputs and outcomes to what they would have been in the absence of the intervention, i.e. with versus without.

  9. 9.

    Instead of randomising individuals, randomisation can be done at cluster levels, such as villages, or schools, or health clinics. Such experiments are known as cluster randomised control trials.

  10. 10.

    Statistical power refers to the probability of detecting an impact of a programme.

  11. 11.

    At this stage, the researcher needs to obtain the informed consent of those recruited for the trial, after explaining the purpose, methodology, risks, and benefits. Only those participants willing to remain engaged throughout the study period should be selected.

  12. 12.

    In a crossover design, all the trial participants receive both interventions in a sequential manner and only the order of intervention is randomly assigned.

  13. 13.

    In cases where important differences are found (or anticipated), the use of stratified random assignment may be warranted.

  14. 14.

    Also known as the ‘double difference’ method.

  15. 15.

    A few farmers did not continue participation in the consultation process, while during monitoring it was discovered that others had not followed the AIs’ instructions. The questionnaires relevant to these farmers were dropped from the analysis. At this stage, the impact of smaller sample size on the results was not analysed.

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Further Readings

    The following readings on the importance of impact evaluation in agricultural policies will be help a diverse group of people working in agriculture.

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      Author information

      Authors and Affiliations

      1. Department of Economics and Statistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

        Wasantha Athukorala

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      1. Wasantha Athukorala
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      Editors and Affiliations

      1. Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Business Management, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

        Jeevika Weerahewa

      2. Policy Analyst, Technical Assistance to the Modernisation of Agriculture Programme Sri Lanka (TAMAP), Colombo, Sri Lanka

        Andrew Jacque

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      Athukorala, W. (2022). Analysing Agriculture Extension Programmes Using Randomised Control Experiments. In: Weerahewa, J., Jacque, A. (eds) Agricultural Policy Analysis. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3284-6_14

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