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Impact of Uganda's National Agricultural Advisory Services
Abstract and Figures
In Uganda, agricultural extension has been hotly debated since the implementation of the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) program in 2001. Conceived as a demand-driven approach and largely publicly funded with services provided by the private sector, the NAADS program targets the development and use of farmer institutions. It is a key strategy in the government's poverty-reduction and national development plan. Due to methodological challenges arising from the complex ways that many factors influence the relationship between extension inputs and outcomes, as well as data-quality issues, the effectiveness of agricultural extension in raising agricultural productivity and incomes and reducing poverty is often viewed with skepticism among policymakers and development practitioners. The NAADS program has been no exception. Some initial evaluations, mostly qualitative in nature, indicate the program has had a favorable effect on increasing the use of improved technologies, marketed output, and wealth status of farmers receiving services from the program. However, the program does not appear to be promoting improved soil-fertility management, raising concern about the sustainability of potential productivity increases. Now that the first phase of the program has ended, this study rigorously assesses the outcomes and impacts obtained thus far, in order to help inform the current second phase and offer lessons for others implementing or planning to implement demand-driven agricultural advisory services in developing countries. The findings presented here are useful to policymakers of central and local governments, farmer groups, advisory service providers, donors, and others seeking to improve agricultural extension services in Uganda and elsewhere. Program evaluators and policy analysts will find the methods instructive.
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... Under the programme, public extension advisers were phased out and rehired by private firms and participating NGOs, or acted as independent consultants paid by farmers. However, an analysis by IFPRI found that the evidence of "whether the NAADS program adequately induced participants to establish new enterprises or to adopt technologies and improved practices more frequently than their non-participating counterparts, seems patchy, with tenuous links … to increased productivity and commercialization of agriculture" (Benin et al., 2011). A later study attributed the limited success of NAADS partly to its over-radical approach and concluded that for complex, large-scale institutional reform programmes, gradual consensus building might work better than sweeping reforms, which risk ignoring local expertise and inviting passive resistance (Rwamigisa et al., 2013). ...
Farmers experiment and innovate continuously and have done so for millennia. Their efforts led to the domestication
of the many crops and livestock species
used in the modern food system. Formal scientific research in agriculture is a relatively recent phenomenon and has been largely responsible for the enormous growth in agricultural yields since the mid-twentieth century. Local indigenous knowledge – often implicit in farmers’ practices – and formal scientific research should both be involved
in the overall innovation system needed to enable family farms to achieve sustainable productivity growth and adapt to changing environmental circumstances. Building closer cooperation between formal and informal parts of the research system can help ensure that agricultural research and development (R&D) supports innovation by small family farms.
... The original NAADS was explicitly not a programme to provide state subsidized inputs but, at this time, the NRM (NRM, 2006) pledged an input component for NAADS (personal communication, MAAIF official and extension expert, June 2013). In spite of the fact that the Constitution and funding of NAADS was laid out in an Act of Parliament, the Government now added an Integrated Farmer Support Component to provide state subsidized inputs to NAADS farmers groups (Benin et al., 2011). This input component eventually grew to take up almost 80% of NAADS expenditures, which was a complete reversal of the original vision (World Bank, 2010b) 7 (see also Table 1 below). ...
This article examines how political incentives shape the implementation of agricultural advisory service reforms. Using the Uganda experience as a typical case we find that elections incentivised the government to add a subsidised input component to the existing service. Growing pressures from local politicians, the Ministry of Agriculture, and, increasingly, disgruntled army factions then constituted a strong, interlocking set of further incentives to revert to a recentralised, top‐down model dominated by the new, subsidised input, component. Our findings point to how well designed implementation processes can be disrupted by the changing incentive structure, an insight which calls for more patient and much more pragmatic approaches to adopting ‘trial and error’ models rather than more ambitious but perhaps unrealistic ones.
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... Partners have included the EU, FAO, IFAD, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), USAID, the World Bank and the Belgian and French cooperation agencies as well as a range of both local and international NGOs. The use of private extension service providers, as has emerged through public-private partnership in Uganda under the National Agricultural Advisory Services Program (Benin et al., 2011), has generally been low, although they were noted to have performed better than the public service providers in the World Bank's PRASAB between 2004(World Bank, 2012. Training programs have focused on both technical training issues, as well as administrative and literacy issues to support the development of producer organizations. ...
Agriculture is the central pillar of Burundi’s economy, accounting for more than one third of the country’s GDP and employing virtually the entire rural workforce. With good geographic conditions and a suitable climate to production, the country has the potential to be a strong participant in the regional agricultural market. Yet, after years of conflict, the country faces important productivity, infrastructure and institutional challenges that continue to undermine the development of a market-oriented sector, and agriculture remains a primarily subsistence activity, dominated by smallholders with poor knowledge of modern agricultural practices and weak connections to the formal economy. All these constraints have limited the possibility of the country to participate in the global agribusiness value chain. However, Burundi is experiencing slowly rising incomes, growing domestic demand for foodstuffs and a need to formalize the country’s economy, placing pressure on the agricultural sector to modernize and organize to create productive, off-farm employment opportunities, generate revenues and, importantly for the short-term, contribute to the country’s food security
... Under the programme, public extension advisers were phased out and rehired by private firms and participating NGOs, or acted as independent consultants paid by farmers. However, an analysis by IFPRI found that the evidence of "whether the NAADS program adequately induced participants to establish new enterprises or to adopt technologies and improved practices more frequently than their non-participating counterparts, seems patchy, with tenuous links … to increased productivity and commercialization of agriculture" (Benin et al., 2011). A later study attributed the limited success of NAADS partly to its over-radical approach and concluded that for complex, large-scale institutional reform programmes, gradual consensus building might work better than sweeping reforms, which risk ignoring local expertise and inviting passive resistance (Rwamigisa et al., 2013). ...
... Partners have included the EU, FAO, IFAD, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), USAID, the World Bank and the Belgian and French cooperation agencies as well as a range of both local and international NGOs. The use of private extension service providers, as has emerged through public-private partnership in Uganda under the National Agricultural Advisory Services Program (Benin et al., 2011), has generally been low, although they were noted to have performed better than the public service providers in the World Bank's PRASAB between 2004(World Bank, 2012. Training programs have focused on both technical training issues, as well as administrative and literacy issues to support the development of producer organizations. ...
Agriculture is the central pillar of Burundi’s economy, accounting for more than one third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employing virtually the entire rural workforce. With good geographic conditions and a suitable climate to production, the country has the potential to be a strong participant in the regional agricultural market. Yet, after years of conflict, the country faces important productivity, infrastructure and institutional challenges that continue to undermine the development of a market-oriented sector, and agriculture remains a primarily subsistence activity, dominated by smallholders with poor knowledge of modern agricultural practices and weak connections to the formal economy. All these constraints have limited the possibility of the country to participate in the global agribusiness value chain. However, Burundi is experiencing slowly rising incomes, growing domestic demand for foodstuffs and a need to formalize the country’s economy, placing pressure on the agricultural sector to modernize and organize to create productive, off-farm employment opportunities, generate revenues and, importantly for the short-term, contribute to the country’s food security.
The paper investigated farmers' participation in public extension service delivery in relation to selected farmer and farm-related variables. By means of a cross-sectional survey, semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data from extension support recipients within the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) between November 2014 and January 2015. Findings show that all respondents attended training sessions organised by local extension agents and were satisfied with the training. Another major finding was that the farmer and farm-related variables appear to be situation-specific regarding farmers' participation in public extension service delivery. Specifically, the findings showed no significant relationships between CASP enterprise type, farm distance from local extension office, farming type, and number of extension visits received. Similarly, satisfaction with CASP-Extension training received did not significantly differ between maize and non-maize producers. The findings are, however, of practical significance to extension programme managers in the Tshwane municipality that farmers, whether individuals or groups, far or near the local extension office receive farm visits, that irrespective of the crop farmers are cultivating, all producers are satisfied with the content of training programmes provided. It is recommended that extension practioners should, however, analyse their local situations for programme participation factors to enhance participation effectiveness.
Diverse agricultural extension services and approaches have been pursued in east Africa with varying degrees of success. The paper explores the extent to which agriculture extension services provided by both public and private sector have been translated into meaningful social and economic development of farmers. Several dynamics in the pursuit of extension programmes include shortage of extension staff and poor working facilities, leading to inadequate capacity of unbalanced technologies and low participation of private sector were noticed. The paper outlines a number of recommendations including but not limited to strongly involve stakeholders in technology development and transfer. This will assist farmers identify their felt needs rather than the needs being determined by extension service providers.
This report presents the findings of an evidence gap map that assesses the evidence available on the effects of land-use change and forestry programmes on greenhouse gas emissions and human welfare outcomes. Our clearest finding is that there is a major gap in the evidence addressing effects on both emissions and human welfare outcomes, including food security. Moreover, few studies measured greenhouse gas emissions or food security directly.
Available Online: http://www.3ieimpact.org/en/publications/3ie-evidence-gap-map-report-series/3ie-evidence-gap-map-report-3/
Use of mechanization in African agriculture has returned strongly to the development agenda, particularly following the recent high food prices crisis. Many developing country governments — including Ghana, the case study of this paper — have resumed support for agricultural mechanization, typically in the form of providing subsidies for tractor purchase and establishment of private-sector-run agricultural mechanization service centers (AMSECs). The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of Ghana’s AMSEC program on various outcomes, using data from household surveys that were conducted with 270 farmers, some of them located in areas with the AMSEC program (treatment) and others located in areas without the program (control).
Pests and diseases are key production constraints
for Ugandan small-scale farmers. In 2010, the Ugandan Government,
as part of its agricultural development strategy,
adopted plant clinics to improve plant health extension for
farmers and to contribute to strengthening disease surveillance.
Despite government commitment and a growing demand
for this new type of farmer service, effective implementation
of plant clinics turned out to be a challenge.We examine
how agricultural policies and institutional setups, and their
political context, influenced the implementation of plant
clinics from 2010 to 2011. We argue that the political agenda
surrounding the decentralization and agricultural extension
reforms, initiated in 1997, substantially weakened the Ministry
of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries and
undermined institutional stability and the effectiveness of
delivery of public extension services. Implementation of plant
clinics was further affected by a new district reform and the
national elections taking place during the study period. The
dual purpose of the plant clinics created uncertainty about
their organisational belonging. They fell through the cracks
of extension and disease control. This was exacerbated by the
unclear roles and authority of the Ministry vs. local governments.
For plant clinics to succeed the fundamental issues of
governance, resources and implementation structure need to
be addressed. The Ugandan experience shows the importance
of understanding not only the policy and institutional frameworks
in which plant clinics operate, but also the effects of
political imperatives and donors on policy implementation.
This study provides a basis for institutional and policy analysis
related to the implementation of plant clinics elsewhere.
We consider the efficiency bound for the estimation of the parameters of semiparametric models defined solely by restrictions on the means of a vector of correlated outcomes, Y, when the data on Y are missing at random. We show that the semiparametric variance bound is the asymptotic variance of the optimal estimator in a class of inverse probability of censoring weighted estimators and that this bound is unchanged if the data are missing completely at random. For this case we study the asymptotic performance of the generalized estimating equations (GEE) estimators of mean parameters and show that the optimal GEE estimator is inefficient except for special cases. The optimal weighted estimator depends on unknown population quantities. But for monotone missing data, we propose an adaptive estimator whose asymptotic variance can achieve the bound.
We propose a class of inverse probability of censoring weighted estimators for the parameters of models for the dependence of the mean of a vector of correlated response variables on a vector of explanatory variables in the presence of missing response data. The proposed estimators do not require full specification of the likelihood. They can be viewed as an extension of generalized estimating equations estimators that allow for the data to be missing at random but not missing completely at random. These estimators can be used to correct for dependent censoring and nonrandom noncompliance in randomized clinical trials studying the effect of a treatment on the evolution over time of the mean of a response variable. The likelihood-based parametric G-computation algorithm estimator may also be used to attempt to correct for dependent censoring and nonrandom noncompliance. But because of possible model misspecification, the parametric G-computation algorithm estimator, in contrast with the proposed weighted estimators, may be inconsistent for the difference in treatment-arm-specific means, even when compliance is completely at random and censoring is independent. We illustrate our methods with the analysis of the effect of zidovudine (AZT) treatment on the evolution of mean CD4 count with data from an AIDS clinical trial.
Based on research in 212 villages in Kakamega district of western Kenya, the paper looks at the bias against women in agricultural services and in the patterns of service delivery. This bias increases as the value of the service increases.-D.J.Marsden(CDS)
The implementation of the Unified Extension System (UES) in the context of decentralisation was assessed through a census survey of the extension staff of Tororo district, using a self-administered questionnaire. The results indicated that decentralisation reduced the effectiveness of the extension staff by increasing the farmer to staff ratio from 1:850 to 1: 1,100. This together with associated constraints, caused staff unfavorable attitudes towards decentralisation, with a mean score of 2.27 on a 5-level likert scale. The main challenge for the extension staff is, therefore, to be able to deliver services in a system they consider to be hostile and yet is responsible for hiring and firing them.
Key words: unified extension system
Eastern Africa Journal of Rural Development (2002) 18, 1-7
Agricultural extension in Uganda has undergone a number of transformations from regulatory 1920- 1956, advisory 1956-1963, advisory Education 1964-1971, dormancy 1972-1981, recovery 1982- 1999, Educational 1992-1996, participatory education 1997-1998, Decentralized Education 1997- 2001 and now Agricultural services under contract extension systems. Each of those up to 1997- 2001 had strengths to build on and weaknesses to change or improve, but had challenges of the socio-economic and political environment. In addition there have been marked changes in the concept of agriculture, which is increasingly seen in terms of commercial or farming for market with emphasis on modernization of agriculture and use of participatory approaches in the process. The dilemma is that the majority of the Ugandan farming community is predominately peasantry/subsistence with a small fraction that can be regarded emergent farmers. Such population may not respond sustainably to the now farmer owned contract extension system including changing patterns of donors. The paper examines a range of issues including training needs, identification of theses needs for more relevant and responsive curricula, the key role of service provider's development in creating learning organizations, developing a strategy for linkages/ learning webs or net works and for more sustainable donor interventions.
This study assessed farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for extension services. The Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was used to assess the amount which farmers are willing to pay. Primary data on the demographic, socio-economic variables of farmers and their WTP were collected from 228 farmers selected randomly in a stage-wise sampling procedure from the Oyo State, Nigeria. The data were summarized using frequency distribution while CVM, commonly used by natural resource economists to assess the willingness of the public to part-fund proposed projects, was used to determine the amount which farmers are willing to pay. Results of the analysis showed that the majority of farmers described themselves as having the ability to pay for services and are willing to pay if their income from farming would increase and the programmes be made relevant to them. They also want to pay through cooperative societies. The CVM result showed that the Lower Bound Mean (LBM) of amount which farmers are willing to pay for extension is N391.47 per farmer per year. The study concluded that there is a challenge to extension specialists to make programmes participatory and farmers relevant if farmers are to be charged with the responsibility of participating in financing agricultural extension services.
A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of male and female extension agents in reaching farmers, especially women, with extension services in Nigeria. Specially the study determined the levels of awareness of and participation in extension activities, adoption of and technical knowledge of recommended agricultural technologies/practices, satisfaction with the quality of extension services provided and agents' credibility of men and women farmers under male and female extension agents supervision. Data gathered from 141 men and 72 women farmers supervised by male agents and 22 men and 93 women farmers supervised by female agents in Oyo, Kaduna and Rivers State Agricultural Development Projects in Nigeria form the empirical basis for the study. Even though men farmers are more aware of and participated more in the extension activities organised by agents than women farmers, the study shows that women farmers, who are supervised by female agents have more access to extension services than women farmers who work with male agents. Specifically, women farmers, who had females for extension agents had relatively higher levels of awareness and participation of the extension activities organised, adoption of and technical knowledge of recommended technologies/practices and satisfaction with the quality of agents' services and credibility. These differential effects of female and male agents on women's access to extension are significant for the delivery of extension services to women farmers, especially. Extension organisations must encourage and recruit more females for extension work done at the same time evolve strategies that will help male agents to work better with women farmers.