Agricultural Extension in Kenya: Practice and Policy Lessons
Agricultural Extension in Kenya: Practice and Policy Lessons
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肯尼亚的农业推广：实践和政策教训
DOI：
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发表时间：
2006
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
T. Jayne
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
M. Muyanga;T. Jayne
有一种共识是，推广服务如果有效运作，可以通过向农民提供信息，帮助他们优化利用有限的资源，从而提高农业生产力。肯尼亚小农户的管理做法和畜牧技能差异很大。如果将效率最低的农民的生产成本降低到平均生产力水平，就可以获得巨大的减贫效益。实现玉米生产效率的这些提高将取决于许多因素，但推广可能是最重要的因素之一。因此，在小农生产力、收入和减贫方面，以及在即将签订的东南非共市和东非共同体贸易协定所暗示的进口关税降低后生存甚至繁荣的能力方面，推广服务表现不佳的国家的成本非常高。本研究的目的是评估目前在肯尼亚开展的替代粮食作物和牲畜推广服务的范围，哪些有效，哪些无效，以及原因。该报告基本上是描述性的，介绍了现有推广机构的性质、特点、采用的方法以及面临的挑战。基于成功的案例，我们确定的属性，可能是重要的推广服务提供在肯尼亚和政府在这种情况下的作用，未来的讨论。这项研究涵盖了代表肯尼亚各种农业区域的16个区。它采用了定性方法，并侧重于私营和公共推广服务提供者。还与农业推广服务领域的其他利益攸关方讨论了他们对现有推广系统和方法的经验和看法。该研究突出了五（6）项重要发现：（1）私营部门提供的推广服务一般偏向于资源丰富的地区和高价值作物。偏远地区和贫穷的生产者，特别是那些种植低价值作物，几乎没有可销售的剩余的人，服务很差。非营利的私人供应商正在瞄准他们。但其范围有限。(2)与私人商业和非营利推广服务相比，公共推广服务的成本似乎很高。(3)由于用于推广的公共资源非常有限，公共推广不应在商业和非营利系统更有效地提供服务的同一地区重复或重叠，这可能是有道理的。这将使更多的公共资源集中用于向偏远地区和商业系统服务差的地区的农民提供推广服务。(4)然而，商业和非商业系统都受益于公共推广服务的存在。替代系统依靠公共推广工作人员进行培训和提供适当的管理咨询，因此，即使公共系统要撤到私营推广无利可图的较偏远地区，也可以适当地对公共部门推广系统工作人员实行某种形式的商业合同，以便后者能够传授商业推广系统所需的技能和能力建设。(5)政府应考虑与私营部门签订合同，在贫困地区提供推广服务。将推广服务承包出去，可以利用这一领域现有的所有人才和经验，但并不取消政府的作用，政府除了提供资金外，还应确保质量保证、监督以及向承包服务提供者提供培训和信息。(6)大量证据表明，在大多数情况下，私人推广不能替代公共推广，公共部门应大量资助推广，但不应重复可持续的替代推广提供者已经提供的服务。
A consensus exists that extension services, if functioning effectively, improve agricultural productivity through providing farmers with information that helps them to optimize their use of limited resources. Variations in management practices and husbandry skills among small farmers in Kenya are very great. Tremendous poverty-reducing benefits could be reaped by bringing the production costs of the most inefficient farmers to mean productivity levels. Achieving these gains in maize production efficiency will depend on many factors, but extension is likely to be among the most important. Therefore, the costs to the nation of having an underperforming extension service – in terms of smallholder productivity, incomes, and poverty reduction, and the ability to survive or even thrive after the reduction in import tariffs as implied by impending COMESA and EAC trade agreements – are very high. The objective of this study is to assess the range of alternative food crop and livestock extension services currently operating in Kenya, what works, what doesn’t, and why. The report is fundamentally descriptive, providing knowledge on the nature of the existing extension providers, their characteristics, approaches employed and the challenges they face. Based on successful cases, we identify attributes that may be important for future discussions about extension service provision in Kenya and the role of the government in such a scenario. The study covered 16 districts representing the various agro-regional zones present in Kenya. It employed qualitative methods and focused on the private and public extension service providers. Discussions were also held with other stakeholder in the agricultural extension service realm about their experiences and perceptions of the existing extension systems and approaches. The study highlights five (6) important findings: (1) private extension provision is generally skewed towards well-endowed regions and high-value crops. Remote areas and poor producers especially those growing low-value crops with little marketable surplus are poorly served. Non-profit private providers are targeting them. But their scope is limited. (2) The public extension service appears to be high-cost compared to private commercial and non-profit extension services. (3) Since public resources for extension are very constrained, it may make sense for public extension not to duplicate or overlap in the same areas that are being provisioned more efficiently by commercial and non-profit systems. This would leave more public resources for concentrating extension services for farmers in areas that are remote and poorly served by the commercial systems. (4) However, the commercial and non-commercial systems benefit from the presence of the public extension service. The alternative systems rely on public extension workers for training and appropriate management advice, so even if the public system was to withdraw to the more remote areas where private extension is unprofitable, it may be appropriate to institute some type of commercial contracting of public sector extension system staff so that the latter can impart needed skills and capacity building of the commercial extension systems. (5) The government should consider contracting the private sector to offer extension services in the disadvantaged regions. Contracting out extension services makes it possible to take advantage of all of the talent and experience existing in the field but does not eliminate a government role which, in addition to funding, ensures quality assurance, oversight, and provision of training and information to contracted services providers. (6) The weight of evidence suggests, in most cases, that private extension is not a substitute for public extension and the public sector should funding extension significantly but in ways that do not duplicate services already being provided by sustainable alternative extension providers.