WITHDRAWN: Extension typologies and sustainable intensification: Evidence from West Africa

Abstract

Agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability are two important complementary sustainable development goals. However, potential trade-offs could exist in some production and farming systems. Sustainable intensification offers the promise of both increasing agricultural productivity and maintaining environmental sustainability, but its current use is puzzlingly low in many regions of the world, possibly due to information constraints. This paper examines the relationship between different typologies of extension systems and the use of sustainable intensification practices in three West African countries: Ghana, Mali, and Nigeria. Exploring the longitudinal nature of the dataset, we show that farmers with access to extension services are more likely to use sustainable intensification practices such as high-yielding and disease-resistant varieties, crop rotation, and intercropping with cereals, as well as the use of organic fertilizers. These relationships hold true for both farmers that are advised by both private and public extension agents. However, the biggest intensification gains are observed for farmers that are jointly advised by both private and public extension systems. Exploring what may be underlying the relationship between the different extension typologies and sustainable intensification, we find suggestive evidence that agricultural training may partly explain this positive relationship. Based on these insights, we conclude that farmer extension services and farmer advisory systems matter in bridging the trade-off between agricultural production and environmental sustainability.JEL codes: I38; J54; Q13; Q16