This document on Good Practices in Extension Research and Evaluation is developed as a hands on reference manual to help young researchers, research students, and field extension functionaries in choosing the right research methods for conducting quality research and evaluation in extension. This manual has been compiled by the resource persons who participated in the Workshop on ‘Good
Policy brief No. 2. The majority of the world’s poor are smallholder farmers in developing countries. These smallhol- ders face several obstacles that limit their produc- tivity and profits, such that their incomes remain low. Institutional changes in the agricultural value chains are required to reduce poverty rates among smallholder farmers, and to stimulate agricultural growth.
Poverty is prevalent in the small-farm sector of many developing countries. A large literature suggests that contract farming —a preharvest agreement between farmers and buyers— can facilitate smallholder market participation, improve household welfare, and promote rural development. These findings have influenced the development policy debate, but the external validity of the extant evidence is limited. Available studies typically focus on a single contract scheme or on a small geographical area in one country.
Contract farming has gained in importance in many developing countries. Previous studies analysed effects of contracts on smallholder farmers’ welfare, yet mostlywithout considering that different types of contractual relationships exist. Here, we examine associations between contract farming and farm household income in the oilpalm sector of Ghana, explicitly differentiating between two types of contracts,namely simple marketing contracts and more comprehensive resource-providing contracts.
It is often assumed that voluntary sustainability standards – such as Fairtrade – could not only improve the socioeconomic wellbeing of smallholder farmers in developing countries but could also help to reduce negative health and environmental impacts of agricultural production. The empirical evidence is thin, as most previous studies on the impact of sustainability standards only focused on economic indicators, such as prices, yields, and incomes.
Smallholder farmers in developing countries often suffer from high risk and limited market access. Contract farming may improve the situation under certain conditions. Several studies analyzed effects of contracts on smallholder productivity and income with mixed results. Most existing studies focused on one particular contract scheme. Contract characteristics rarely differ within one scheme, so little is known about how different contract characteristics may influence the benefits for smallholders.
In early 2020, GFRAS provided support to the Agricultural Extension in South Asia (AESA) Network and the Bangladesh Agricultural Extension Network (BAEN) in order to customize one of the NELK Modules in the context of Bangladesh. The BAEN Executive Committee selected the GFRAS NELK Module 7 on ‘Facilitation for Development’ for customization. AESA and BAEN jointly implemented the development of the customized module for Bangladesh. The process of customization consisted of five phases spread over a span of six months.