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Impact of an Agricultural Development Project on Technology Adoption and Crop Yields of Resource Poor Farmers in Bangladesh

M A Jabbar
Ex-consultant of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)

A T M Ziauddin
Ex-Team Leader of the International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya;

M Z Abedin
Professor, Department of Farm Power and Machinery, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh; and IRRI Representative in Bangladesh

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

An agricultural development project targeted to resource poor households disseminated a wide range of crop, livestock, fisheries, agro-processing and non-farm technologies to enhance their yield, income and food security. In this paper, impact of the project on acquisition of knowledge and adoption of the promoted technologies are measured as these are critical intermediate steps to achieve increased yield, income and food security. A combination of project and control, and before intervention and after intervention was used to assess impact of the project activities. It appeared that for technologies which were more vigorously promoted through knowledge dissemination and input supply, both incidence of knowledge and adoption increased significantly in the project areas, and in some cases net change in adoption was more than in knowledge acquisition perhaps because previously people knew certain technologies but did not practice them due to some constraints which were removed by the project activities. Net change in the yield of several crops was 8-21% in the project areas. The findings indicate that even when technologies are scale neutral, poor and marginal farmers may not be aware about them and may not adopt them or adopt inadequately due to lack of knowledge and access to inputs and services. Therefore, much social gains can be derived by designing and implementing extension, information dissemination and input supply programs targeted to such households so that they may have access to better knowledge, technology and inputs to make best use of their meager land, labor and capital resources to improve productivity and income and improve food security.

Keywords: Project,Knowledge, Adoption,Technology,Impact, Bangladesh

Location:

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Commodity: Rice

Objectives:

To make best use of their meagre land, labour and capital resources to improve productivity and income and improve food security.

Methodology:

The base line survey was done in the selected project villages as well as in similar nearby villages as control areas. A total of 1090 households in project areas and 1091 from control villages were surveyed. These numbers represent about 6% of the total number of households in the project as well as the control villages. The sample size was estimated in such a way as the results of the survey would be within 5% of the true value with 95% confidence level. The survey was done using a structured questionnaire. When the project became fully operational, it appeared that a small number of households which were interviewed assuming to be prospective project participants eventually did not join the project at that time. In such cases, the project took replacement households. For the control villages, this was not a problem. An end of project survey was conducted among the same households that were included in the base line survey. However, the total sample for the three INGOs was 1074 project participants and 1055 in control areas compared to the base line sample of respectively 1090 and 1091. The smaller number in the end of project survey arose because some project participants left the project in the middle or were not available for interview during the survey period. Given the small number of dropouts or missing samples, it was assumed that it would not affect the results given the large size of the overall sample. The end of project survey was conducted using a questionnaire in which most of the elements of the baseline survey were retained for purposes of comparison. In a few cases, the format of the question was slightly changed to provide more clarity to the subjects. The survey was conducted during December 2008 – January 2009 collecting data for the calendar year or crop year from November 2007 to October 2008 (Aman to Aus cropping seasons.

Source of Information: Bangladesh J. Agric. Econs. XXXIV, 1&2 (2011) 55-75

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

The findings of this study indicate that even when technologies are scale neutral, poor and marginal farmers may not be aware about them and may not adopt them or adopt adequately due to lack of knowledge and access to inputs and services. Therefore, much social gains can be derived by designing and implementing extension, information dissemination and input supply programs targeted to such households so that they may have access to better knowledge, technology and inputs to make best use of their meager land, labour and capital resources to improve productivity and income and improve food security. Such programs should have a long menu of technologies, innovations and activities suitable for poor households, so that people can choose what suits them most Public sector extension has played a key role in the past in the success achieved in food production and in various sub-sectors of agriculture. However, public sector extension had and still has limited capacity to reach the entire farming population with their services. The findings of this study suggest that public sector extension may play a role in enhancing the capacity of NGOs, especially smaller local NGOs to perform complementary role in knowledge and information dissemination to small and marginal households. Further, innovative farmers and framer leaders may also be trained to serve as informal extension agents to link with formal service providers. Small scale or resource base is a major handicap for acquisition of inputs and services and marketing of products as it involves high transaction costs. Collective efforts – whether in the form of cooperatives or some other kind of group organization- can overcome such problems. Although cooperatives have earned bad name due to its misuse and mismanagement, the findings of this study indicate that self organized collective efforts are useful and necessary to tackle the problems of poor households to get them out of poverty. Public and NGO investment in creating awareness about the benefits of collective action and capacity to self organize rather than imposing any pre-designed organizational form may have high pay off in helping poor get out of poverty.

Knowledge Management: Journal