Social learning in agriculture: does smallholder heterogeneity impede technology diffusion in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Karen Macours, Luc Behaghel and Jérémie Gignoux

No 15220, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Evaluating a large-scale program for dairy farmers in Uganda, we show that a simple version of the “contact farmer†extension model can meaningfully increase smallholder farmers’ revenues. While the program provides no monetary incentives, we find evidence that two other ingredients – backstopping by professional extension agent and advertising pro-social motivation – reinforce its impacts. Though it has been hypothesized to be a major impediment to social learning in Sub- Saharan African agriculture, we do not find smallholder heterogeneity to condition the effectiveness of the approach: farmer trainers trained to take this heterogeneity into consideration do not perform better; moreover, we find no statistical evidence that program effects vary by farmers’ characteristics.

Keywords: Agricultural productivity; Heterogeneity; Extension; Livestock; Social learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O12 O13 O33 Q16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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