Improving technology adoption in agriculture through extension services : evidence from Uruguay (English)

This paper evaluates whether cost-sharing public interventions are successful in promoting agricultural technology uptake by small and medium farmers, and whether these changes can affect yields. The paper contributes to the debate by providing empirical...  See More + This paper evaluates whether cost-sharing public interventions are successful in promoting agricultural technology uptake by small and medium farmers, and whether these changes can affect yields. The paper contributes to the debate by providing empirical evidence, which is scarce in the literature, from a program offering extension services to fruit producers in Uruguay. Using a unique panel dataset, the authors estimate a fixed effects model for the impact of extension services on technology adoption and yields. The authors find evidence that the program increased density of plantation. Once small sample issues are addressed, the authors also find some evidence of impact on the adoption of improved varieties. However, the authors find no evidence of impact on yields for the period under study. Although this lack of effects on yields can be due to the limited timeframe of the evaluation and does not rule out effects on other measures of productivity, it may also indicate that the practices promoted by the program are insufficient to induce a detectable impact on productivity and, consequently, sustainable benefits for the farmers. The study, therefore, confirms the need of including the design of impact evaluations in the policy design in order to properly consider the timing of all the potential effects and produce conclusive findings and precise recommendations.  See Less -