Download or read book The History of Agricultural Extension in Malawi written by Jochen Knorr and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "After some highlights about the emergence of Agricultural Extension in industrialised countries, a detailed outline of its history in Malawi is given. Besides publications the source of assessment of the Malawi extension system are interviews with farmers as well with actual and with retired extension staff from 2001. Recent developments since 2001 are again followed by literature review. As a result there is a clear picture, that despite regular reforms and changes in the extension approach, most of it did not really reach the ground, did not much affect, what happened at field level. The problems could never be solved in a satisfactory way, and as a consequence extension failed to fulfil its role for rural and small farmer development. The most crucial deficit seems to be, that at no times there was enough appropriate extension content, to justify all the efforts and costs of transfer. The recommended technologies were either too risky, or dependent on non-available inputs, too general and not adapted to local conditions. The recent reform, explained in detail in this book, seems appropriate, but also highly ambitious, certainly needing longer periods for full implementation. Looking to the past, one would be rather pessimistic about its chances for success. But seeing new market opportunities emerging and clear indicators for economic growth in Africa and even in Malawi, there is some good reason for hope. The book is a key to better understanding of the past and present problems of agricultural extension systems in Africa."--Publisher's description.

Download or read book A Brief History of Agricultural Extension Services in Malawi from 1948 to 2000 written by Edward S. Kabuye and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Supply of and demand for agricultural extension services in Malawi A synthesis written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2018-02-14 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are more than 120 organizations and programs in Malawi working on agriculture that include extension service provision among their main activities. However, extension service provision is largely "projectized" uncoordinated, and unmonitored. This Note synthesizes the main findings from the recent surveys and interviews of households, communities, and service providers about the status of access to these extension services, challenges on both demand and supply sides, and suggestions and reflections that can inform the ongoing development of the National Agricultural Extension Strategy.

Download or read book Agricultural Extension and Advisory Service Delivery in Malawi written by Flora Nankhuni and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Dynamics in agricultural extension services provision in Malawi Insights from two rounds of household and community panel surveys written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government of Malawi is in the process of developing its National Agricultural Extension Strategy. Two rounds of national household and community surveys (2016, 2018), coupled with in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, were implemented to provide research evidence supporting the Strategy’s development. This paper summarizes emerging trends from these surveys and monitors progress in extension services provision, players and actors in extension services provision, and evidence on the coverage and effectiveness of extension approaches. Positive trends include (1) improvements in the percentage of men and women farmers accessing extension services; (2) consistently high ratings in the perceived quality of extension services; (3) more diversity in extension messages, including more information regarding market access and nutrition; (4) greater use of cost-effective tools, such as radio programming and community or group meetings, as sources of agricultural information; and (5) greater crop diversification, although diversification outside of agriculture remains low. Four areas remain weak and need further improvements. First, information sharing among farmers, friends, and neighbors is frequent, and the coverage of those officially trained “lead farmers” (those trained specifically to promote technologies to other farmers) remains low, with only 7 percent of households reporting getting relevant advice from them. Second, while there are more “model villages” and “village agricultural committees” present, we see decreasing participation and ratings for these. Third, we observe greater awareness of promoted technologies, including conservation agriculture, pit planting, and sustainable land practices, but adoption remains very low. Fourth, we observe greater crop diversification, but farm productivity and commercialization remain low. Although we have investigated many dimensions and factors in this paper, there remain challenges and puzzles that could be further addressed in future research. These include constraints on the adoption of minimal expensive inputs and low-cost management practices, constraints on the role of intensive training and labor, and understanding the drivers and factors affecting commercialization and diversification.

Download or read book The impact of agricultural extension services in the context of a heavily subsidized input system written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-01-08 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper aims to test this hypothesis and to contribute to better understanding of strategies to revitalize the agricultural extension system in Malawi. Specifically, it examines the interplay between the fertilizer subsidy and access to extension services, and their impact on farm productivity and food security in Malawi. Results show that the fertilizer subsidy has inconsistent impact on farm productivity and food security; at the same time, access to agricultural advice was consistently insignificant in explaining farm productivity and food security. Further analysis, however, shows that when access to extension services is unpacked to include indicators of usefulness and farmers’ satisfaction, these indicators were statistically significant. Households who reported that they received very useful agricultural advice had greater productivity and greater food security than those who reported receiving advice that they considered not useful. This result implies the need to ensure the provision of relevant and useful agricultural advice to increase the likelihood of achieving agricultural development outcomes

Download or read book The state of agricultural extension and advisory services provision in Malawi Insights from household and community surveys written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-03-04 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is part of a series of descriptive reports and later in-depth analysis of the survey data. These series are aimed to provide an assessment of the state of agricultural extension and advisory services provision in Malawi in order to inform policy and reform processes and programming by the government and donors. These studies are in response to the re-quest by the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development (MoAIWD) to look closely at the state of extension services provision with the intent to further strengthen the contribution such services make to food security, economic growth, and achieving sustainable development goals. This report summarizes key findings on the state of agriculture and nutrition extension and advisory services in Malawi based on responses from household and community surveys conducted in Malawi between August and October 2016 that focused on the demand side of agricultural extension service provision and access to those services. Nationally representative samples of 3001 households and 299 communities in all districts of Malawi, except Likoma, were interviewed for the study.

Download or read book Environment and Sustainable Development in Eastern and Southern Africa written by Abdel Ghaffar Muhammad Ahmad and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1998 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over three decades have passed since the issue of environment and development received international recognition. The concept of sustainable development, with all its connotations, was coined some years later. It is well understood that the environment does not exist as a sphere separate from human actions, ambitions, and need. Human survival is now facing a global threat, consequent upon a complex of unrestrained human activities over the last few decades. This book sheds light on the sources of environmental concerns in Africa. It shows that not all environmental issues command the same priority interest and, thus, emphasis must be laid on those that are of pressing concern to the continent as a whole and to the Eastern and Southern African regions in particular. The case studies address this topic in detail.

Download or read book Modeling the effectiveness of the lead farmer approach in agricultural extension service provision Nationally representative panel data analysis in Malawi written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2019-06-14 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The lead farmer (LF) approach has been implemented and heavily promoted nationwide in Malawi since 2009 to support government extension workers and accelerate technology dissemination. Earlier reports have shown that donor-funded projects in Malawi widely adopted the LF approach, indicating positive roles and contributions of LFs. However, national data show persistently low rates of adoption of management practices being promoted by the LFs, prompting this study to look closely at the nationwide implementation and effectiveness of the LF approach. Specifically, we model the effects of farmers’ interaction with and exposure to LFs and farmers’ access to LFs’ advice on farmers’ awareness of and adoption of several promoted technologies and management practices. We use data from 531 randomly selected LFs linked to panel data from 2,800 farming households and, using correlated random effects, model the effectiveness of the LF approach on technology awareness and adoption. This is complemented by 55 focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with agricultural extension development officers (AEDOs) and service providers. Our results point to two major conclusions. First, LFs support and assist AEDOs in their work, especially in organizing community meetings and farm demonstrations, and are also an important bridge between farmers and AEDOs. But LFs complement AEDOs’ work rather than substitute for it. In communities without strong AEDOs and community leaders to work with and monitor them, LFs were not active or performed at a substandard level. Second, results show limited coverage and weak implementation and effectiveness of the LF approach at the national level. Only 13 percent of farmers reported receiving agricultural advice from an LF in the last two years, and only 20 percent reported having interacted with an LF. Our econometric models also consistently show neither the farmers’ exposure or interaction with LFs nor farmers’ access to LFs’ advice had an effect on awareness of and adoption of the major agricultural management practices being promoted. When heterogeneity and types of LFs are unpacked, results show that quality of LFs, adoption behavior of LFs, and regular training of LFs have strong and consistent effect on the awareness and adoption of most agricultural practices promoted.

Download or read book Assessing and strengthening Malawi s pluralistic agricultural extension system Evidence and lessons from a three year research study written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2019-11-20 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In July 2016, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and partners launched a three-year evidence-based policy support project to analyze demand for and supply of agricultural extension services in Malawi and help design activities to strengthen service providers’ capacity to address farmers’ demands for information. For this project, IFPRI partnered with Wadonda Consult and the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) to conduct the household survey and qualitative interviews. Funding came from the Government of Flanders, the U.S. Agency for International Development through the Strengthening Agricultural and Nutrition Extension (SANE), the German Agency for International Cooperation [GIZ]), and the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM). The project collected two rounds of nationally representative panel data of 2,880 households (2016 and 2018), two rounds of focus group discussions (FGDs), census of extension service providers in 15 districts, and a series of in-depth interviews. This note summarizes the main findings from 10 reports completed to analyze and draw conclusions from the stories behind these datasets.

Download or read book Agricultural Input Subsidies written by Ephraim Chirwa and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-09-26 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes forward our understanding of agricultural input subsidies in low income countries.

Download or read book Guide to Extension Training written by Peter Oakley and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 1985 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The framework of development; Understanding extension; Social and cultural factors in extension; Extension and comunication; Extension methods; The extension agent; The planning and evaluation of extension programmes; Extension an special target groups.

Download or read book Agricultural Extension and Training in Mala i written by Malawi. Department of Agriculture and published by . This book was released on 1987* with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Concepts and Practices in Agricultural Extension in Developing Countries written by and published by ILRI (aka ILCA and ILRAD). This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Malawi written by Owen J. M. Kalinga and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Malawi, established as the British protectorate of Nyasaland in 1891, gained its independence in 1964 and moved immediately into three decades of one-party rule. Since the mid-1990s, however, the country has held multi-party elections, as directed by its constitution, and President Bingu wa Mutharika is currently serving his second term. The fourth edition of the Historical Dictionary of Malawi, now newly expanded and updated, covers a wide range of areas in Malawi history, including the rise and fall of state systems, religious and socio-political movements, the economy, environment, transportation, war, disease, and natural sciences. Author Owen J. M. Kalinga charts developments from pre-history to the post-Banda Malawi, from Tom Bokwito to James Sangala, and from the UMCA mission at Magomero to the second term of Bingu wa Mutharika's presidency, paying particular attention to the individuals, groups, communities, and forces that have molded this South African country. The dictionary itself contains over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on crucial aspects of Malawi history, and it is the most extensive single-volume reference work on Malawi available. In addition to the dictionary entries, Kalinga provides a chronology containing important dates and events and an informative bibliographical section organized by subject. The final part of the bibliography gives the reader a list of current and obsolete newspapers and periodicals related to Malawi, an ideal resource for further research. This newly updated edition is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Malawi.

Download or read book Mass media for agricultural extension in Malawi written by and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Agricultural Extension Services in Malawi written by Anthony A. Namalomba and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: