The Impact of Agricultural Extension on Farm Production in Resettlement Areas of Zimbabwe

Abstract

In this paper, we revisit the contested issue of the impact of agricultural extension on farm production. We exploit two features of the data available to us: its longitudinal nature and explicit measures of farmer ability. We find that after controlling for innate productivity characteristics and farmer ability either using household fixed effects estimation, or by including a measure of farmer ability and village fixed effects, access to agricultural extension services, defined as receiving one or two visits per agricultural year, raises the value of crop production by about 15 per cent. This parameter estimate is statistically significant. However, we also find variability in these parameter estimates across individual crop years, with the impact being markedly different in drought and non-drought years. Collectively, these results suggest that although access to farm-level extension visits does increase productivity even after controlling for innate productivity characteristics and farmer ability, results from single-year cross-sectional studies should be treated with caution

Contested paradigms of ‘viability’ in redistributive land reform: perspectives from southern Africa

“…Settler beneficiaries were reported as having higher incomes, lower income variability and more evenly distributed incomes (although higher childhood malnutrition) than their (near) equivalents in the communal areas (Kinsey 1999). Kinsey and colleagues argued that these (mostly) positive results emerged after a time lag, with an establishment phase where people organised themselves, gained access to services and accumulated productive assets (Kinsey 2003;Owens et al 2003). In sum, 'viability' had to be given a time dimension, and was not just the result of efficient production, but also about social organisation, institution building and coordinated post-settlement support.…”

The agricultural extension contact in Bangladesh

“…According to Evenson and Mwabu (2001), large farms have higher productivity, but other studies (Moock 1976, Owens 2003 did not find a clear positive relationship between the two, or, even, presumed a negative relationship. Considering the above, it can say that there is no common agreement on the relation between farm size and productivity.…”

“…As is commonly used in analyzing production functions, chemical fertilizers, farm buildings, irrigation facilities and family and hired labor should be considered as important investment functions (Evenson and Mwabu 2001, Moock 1976, Owens et al 2003. In this research, the analysis was based on the converted amounts of each type of investment.…”

Money for Wine?: Complementarities in the Provision of Private and Public Goods to Wine Producers

“…At the same time, there is little evidence of diffusion of knowledge from farmer field schools graduates to other farmers. Owens et al (2003) and Romani (2003) estimate the impact of traditional extension services and find a positive impact of extension services on productivity and yields using panels of farmers for Zimbabwe and Ivory Coast, respectively. However, they note that this impact is neither present for all the years nor for all the crops studied.…”