Extension and management pathways for enhanced farm sustainability: evidence from Irish dairy farms

Lorraine Balaine, Doris Läpple, Emma J Dillon and Cathal Buckley

European Review of Agricultural Economics, 2023, vol. 50, issue 2, 810-850

Abstract: This article examines pathways among farmers’ extension participation, the uptake of recommended farm management practices and economic and environmental sustainability. We explore the ‘win-win’, efficiency-based focus of the Irish hybrid extension programme using an unbalanced panel dataset of dairy farms from 2010 to 2019. We apply two-way fixed effects regression models and sensitivity analyses to ensure the robustness of our results to effect heterogeneity and omitted variable bias. Our findings reveal that extension participation has a limited association with the adoption of recommended practices. These practices might be associated with economic benefits, while their environmental effects are not evident. Additionally, extension participation is not found to have a direct association with sustainability outcomes. These findings have important implications for extension programmes that focus on economic and environmental outcomes.

Keywords: agricultural extension; farm management practices; farm sustainability; two-way fixed effects regression models; sensitivity analyses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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