Effects of inclusive public agricultural extension service: Results from a policy reform experiment in western China

Abstract

The top–down public agricultural extension system in China and its early commercialization reforms during the 1990s have left millions of farmers without access to extension services. A pilot inclusive agricultural extension system was introduced in 2005 to better meet the diverse needs of small-scale farmers. Three key features of the experiment are (1) inclusion of all farmers as target beneficiaries, (2) effective identification of farmers' extension service needs, and (3) an accountability system to provide better agricultural extension services to farmers. This paper describes design of the reform initiative and examines its effect on farmers' access to extension services. Based on farmer supplied data from six counties for the years 2005 to 2007, this paper shows that inclusive reform initiatives significantly improve farmers' access to and actually received of agricultural extension services as well as their adoption of new technologies. Implications for further reforms to the agricultural extension system are also discussed.

Introduction

Many countries established their agricultural extension systems in order to realize their national food security goals (Hu et al., 2009, Swanson, 2006, Umali and Schwartz, 1994, Umali and Schwartz, 1997). Through the combined efforts of international organizations and national governments, by the 1980s most Asian developing countries and some on other continents had successfully improved their food security (Swanson, 2006). As a result, government support for public research and extension in most countries began to fall in the late 1980s (Huang et al., 2003, Huang et al., 2000, Swanson, 2006).

Budget problems have forced many countries to reform their public agricultural extension system (Feder et al., 1999, Umali and Schwartz, 1994). While in Europe these reforms took the form of privatization, in some developing countries they involved decentralization and commercialization (Anderson and Feder, 2003, Hu et al., 2009, Rivera et al., 2001, Umali and Schwartz, 1994, Umali and Schwartz, 1997). Previous studies showed that privatization reform had resulted in reduced farmers' access to public agricultural extension services (Cary, 1998, Feder et al., 1999, Lindner, 1993, Umali and Schwartz, 1994, Umali and Schwartz, 1997). Klerkx and Leeuwis (2008) argued that, due to market and systemic failures, both buyers and sellers experienced constraints in effecting transactions and establishing the necessary relationships to engage in demand-driven innovation processes.

Market reform and globalization have prompted small-scale farmers to change their traditional production structure, which often requires a more diversified extension service (Klerkx and Leeuwis, 2008, Rivera et al., 2001). High-value agricultural production and off-farm jobs have become major opportunities for farmers to escape rural poverty. This change has made the traditional institutional arrangement of public extension less effective in delivering services to farmers. Because the institutional goal of a public agricultural extension system is to realize the nation's food security, services to farmers engaged in high-value agricultural production are not a priority in many developing countries. Consequently, the traditional agricultural extension system is not always set up in such a way as to support farmers' demands for diversified services.

China is an interesting case in the evolution of agricultural extension reform. While its top–down public agricultural extension system played a significant role in promoting technological progress and agricultural output growth in China in the 1970s and 1980s (Fan, 2000, Huang and Rozelle, 1996, Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), the People's Republic of China, 1999, Zhu, 1995), the system has faced great challenges after the late 1980s when China accelerated its reform process from the planned to a market oriented economy (Huang et al., 2000). As in other developing countries (Feder et al., 1999, Kidd et al., 2000, Umali and Schwartz, 1994, Umali and Schwartz, 1997), China's government has conducted a series of agricultural extension reforms since the mid-1980s. In 1985, the government encouraged the public agricultural extension station to earn their own income through commercial activities to make up the budget shortage (Wang, 1994). While this reform did raise budget to overcome budget constraint, the commercialization reforms had also pushed public extension agents to sell more pesticides and fertilizers to farmers (Huang, Qiao, Zhang, & Rozelle, 2001). Budget constraint and moving to a more market oriented economy had also induced the decentralization reform for China's township¹ agricultural extension station in the early 1990. The reform passed the township agricultural extension station management and core funding from county's agricultural bureau to township government. Previous studies found that this reform resulted in the extension technician spending too much time on administrative affairs other than extension because township government's mandates are overall economic growth and social stability (Hu et al., 2004, Hu et al., 2009, Ke, 2005). A survey found that more than 80% of farmers did not see any extension technician in the villages during the period of 1996 to 2002 (Cai and Hu, 2009, Hu et al., 2004). Even for the limited actual agricultural extension work, technicians largely focused on the grain sector and on designated demonstration farmers, which hardly met farmers' demand for diversified extension services (Hu et al., 2007).

In response to the mixed results of early reforms, China has started a number of new initiatives to promote a more demand-driven public agricultural extension system. In 2005, an inclusive public agricultural technology extension system was introduced as a pilot in Pengzhou city (a county-level city), Sichuan province; and Wuchuan county, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR). The goal of pilots is to make the public agricultural extension technicians go down to farmer's fields to provide extension services to meet the diverse technology and marketing information needs of small farmers at the village level (Chen and Shi, 2008, Hu et al., 2006). Following initial successes, the reform model was embraced by both local and central governments, modified and scaled up in 2006 and 2007. The objectives of this paper are to describe the design of the inclusive reform initiative in 2005 and its scaled-up initiatives in 2006–2007 and to examine their effects on farmers.