Researchers have sought to understand what keeps women’s observed rates of agricultural technology adoption low. But what happens after a new technology is adopted by a household? Do women’s lives really become better? Are they more empowered? A new paper explores these questions using the example of adopting small-scale irrigation technologies in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania.
Discussion Paper 1654: Limited Attention and Information Loss in the Lab-to-Farm Knowledge Chain: The Case of Malawian Agricultural Extension Programs
Agricultural extension plays a crucial role in promoting agricultural productivity, increasing food security, improving rural livelihoods, and promoting agriculture as an engine of economic growth in developing countries. Yet, for agricultural knowledge to move from theory into practice, or from lab to field, extension services provide a critical linkage directly to farmers. In a new […]
Pathways Less Explored – Locus of Control and Technology Adoption
Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse of ESSP gave a presentation on Pathways Less Explored – Locus of Control and Technology Adoption at the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI) on March 24, 2017.
Evaluating impact of participatory agricultural interventions: do we see what we want to see?
“Agricultural (research) programs without rigorous impact evaluation tend to focus on rapid testing (and rollout) of technologies with high-probability adopters to provide swift feedback to donor constituencies. Such programs also tend to favor numeric accomplishments over a deeper understanding of complex development processes with the unintended consequence of promoting solutions without strong evidence of impact […]
