Promoting Private Sector Participation in Agricultural Extension in Nigeria: Lessons from the New Institutional Economics

This paper discusses strategies for enhancing private sector participation in agricultural extension delivery in Nigeria using some of the arguments of the New Institutional Economics. Bearing in mind the fact that the primary motivating factor of private enterprise is profit, the paper analyses, the feasibility of private provision of extension services by examining their economic nature. The question of moral hazard in private provision is also examined. Attention is drawn to the need to develop state contracting procedures to facilitate the transfer of responsibilities to the private sector