Farmers’ Access to Agricultural Service Institutions, by Dr. Kaikaus Ahmad, IFPRI

1. Farmers’ Access to Agricultural
Service Institutions
Kaikaus Ahmad
Bangladesh Policy Research and Strategy Support Program
International Food Policy Research Institute
Workshop on
The Feed the Future Zone in the South and the Rest of Bangladesh:
A Comparison of Food Security Aspects
16 January 2013
Dhaka

2. Agricultural Service Institutions
• Agricultural services, comprises the entire
set of organizations that support people
engaged in agricultural production and
facilitate their efforts to solve problems; link
to markets and other players in the
agricultural value chain; and obtain
information, skills, and technologies to
improve their livelihoods (Birner et al. 2009;
Davis 2009)
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3. Role of Agricultural Service Institutions
• Extension and advisory services play a
central role in the agricultural development
process: both in terms of technology transfer
and human resource development
• Short term: economic criteria related to
technology transfer and increasing
productivity
• Long term: sustainable agricultural practices
and rural development
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4. Farmers Require Services for:
• Appropriate technological options and
management of technologies
• Changing farm system options
• Sourcing input suppliers and time to buy inputs
• Collective action with other farmers
• Consumer and market demands for products and
quality of produce
• Implications of changing policies (input
subsidies, trade liberalization)
• Access to credit and loans
• Sustainable natural resource management and
coping with climate change
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5. Focus of the Analysis
• Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey, 2011
• Outreach of Agricultural Extension Services
• Impact of extension services on technology
adoption and productivity
• Access to credit (public and private)
• Impact of credit on technology adoption and
productivity
• A comparison of the performance of agricultural
service institutions between the FtF zone in south
and the national level
• Conclusion
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6. Percent of farmers consulted an agricultural
extension agent during the last 12 months?
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7. Percent of farmers who were visited by
extension agent and said the advice was useful
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8. Yield (ton/hectare) for small farmers cultivating HYV
Boro rice: visited vs. not visited
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9. Muriate of Potash (MP)
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10. Percent of farmers currently have any credit
(by farm size)
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11. Sources of credit to farmers (by farm size)
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12. Percent of farmers (by farm size) have credit for
agricultural and non-agricultural purposes
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13. Proportion of HYV Boro farmers:
agricultural credit vs. no credit
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14. Summary
• Famers consider extension service very useful
• Extension service is reaching mostly to large
and medium farmers
• Outreach of agricultural service is relatively
better in FtF zone
• Small farmers appear to benefit more from
extension compared to other category of
farmers considering their higher yield
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15. Summary (cont’d)
• Farmers tend to diversify fertilizer use when they
get advice from extension services
• Farmers depend heavily on credit
• Marginal and small farmers constitute the largest
share of farmers, yet they get very little
institutional credit
• Marginal farmers borrow more for other
purposes than agriculture
• Farmers adopt better technology when they get
agricultural credit
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16. Policy Implications
• Agricultural service institutions can play
effective role in technology adoption
• Marginal and small farmers constitute the
largest share of farmers, yet they get little
access to agricultural service institutions
• Policies should be made to reach agricultural
institutional services to marginal and small
farmers
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