The economics of an extension program in Maradi, Niger

This dissertation evaluates the economics of an extension program introducing new agricultural technologies with better agronomic practices and marketing strategies into Maradi, the major agricultural region of Niger. The yield increase of the improved technology is large when agronomic recommendations are well followed. Farmers closely following program recommendations, especially side-dressing the inorganic fertilizer, obtained double of other program participant yields. Participants not following the recommendations obtained lower yields than the traditional technology. The traditional system is more adapted to low soil fertility and those not closely following the program lost their advantage from moderate fertilizer with the poor placement (broadcasting). These good followers of the program might have better access to farm resources and different characteristics. Thus, we separated the effect of these factors to evaluate the yield effect of the improved technology package alone. In normal years these best farmer effects only explained 16 to 18% of the yield differences. However, in adverse years the best farmers apparently responded better and the yield differences for them were increased to between 57 to 75% of the yields attributed to new technology. Because there are no major differences in farmer characteristics or endowments, more of the farmers can be developed into best farmers rather than seeing this large best farmer effect in adverse years as a constraint to rapid technology introduction. There is evidence of increased program compliance over time. This reaffirms our extension strategy of working through farmers\u27 associations. The basic rationale was that farmers are more likely to adopt practices that other farmers are successful with rather than outside expert recommendations or even demonstration trials. The latter are often very complicated especially when farmers must follow detailed agronomic recommendations and new marketing methods through storage and group sales. Because almost 40% of the farmers did not initially closely follow program recommendations, a better selection process for members in the farmers\u27 association is clearly needed. In order to identify the good followers we investigate the decision to participate in the program and follow program recommendations as a two-step decision process. The decision to join the program appears to be principally determined by social factors rather than farmer or farm capacity. This second decision to closely follow the recommendations is primarily influenced by participants\u27 resource endowment, capital, and the number of years in the program. The social factors for joining the program did not influence this decision. Finally, focusing on the efficiency frontier enables us to identify methods to further increase the returns to the program. Twenty-nine percent of the best farmers were selling through the association after paying for their input credit. Their average sales were 31% of their remaining cereals (310 kg/farm). There is substantial potential for further income increases as farmers expand their proportion of sales through the association and increase their areas in the new technology-marketing system. Note that higher yields were also associated with increased marketing through the association