2014. Neighbors and Extension Agents in Ethiopia: Who Matters More for Technology Adoption

The increased adoption of fertilizer and improved seeds are two key aspects to raising the level of land productivity in Ethiopian agriculture. However, the adoption and diffusion of such technologies has been slow. We use data from Ethiopia between 1999–2009 to examine the role of learning from extension agents versus learning from neighbors for both improved seeds and fertilizer adoption. We combine farmers ’ spatial networks with panel data to identify these influences, and find that while the initial impact of extension agents was high, the effect wore off after some time, in contrast to learning from neighbors. Key words: adoption, diffusion, social networks. JEL codes: C31, Q16. Increasing agricultural productivity levels is considered vital to economic growth in poor countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where productivity growth has lagged behind other continents (Evenson and Gollin 2003). Consequently, there has been enormous inter-est in replicating the Asian Green Revolution in sub-Saharan Africa. The focus has been on new technologies, particularly the adop-tion and diffusion of improved seed varieties and the increased use of fertilizer, supported by investments in effective extension services. Understanding how new technologies spread and how effective extension services can be in this process remain important areas of inquiry. The role that extension services and learn-ing from others may play have both been explored in the literature, but few studies have attempted to study them together, despite the fact that learning takes place simultaneously from different sources.1 This gap exists largely Pramila Krishnan is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge. Manasa Patnam is an assistant professor at the ENSAE (Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration) and research fellow at CREST (Centr