DLEC Project in Review Small scale, farmers, global, food production, agriculture, training, extension services, markets, DLEC, Digital Green, diagnostic, studies, communities

Looking back – Project in review

Feed the Future Developing Local Extension Capacity (DLEC)

More than half a billion small-scale farmers around the world contribute significantly to global food production and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Reaching these farmers with information and training to help them produce and market food sustainably while adapting to risks like climate change is critical. Extension services play this role, providing farmer education and advice and linking farmers to input and output markets. But extension services are often under-resourced, have low capacity, and need better tools, especially digital ones. The Feed the Future Developing Local Extension Capacity (DLEC) project has worked for the past five years to diagnose extension service needs and opportunities, test out innovative ideas, and share the evidence we’ve gathered. Below is a snapshot of what we’ve learned.

Agricultural extension and advisory services include all the organizations that support people engaged in agricultural production and facilitate problem solving and access to information, skills, and technologies to improve their livelihoods and well-being.

Davis, Kristin E., ed.; Babu, Suresh Chandra, ed.; and Ragasa, Catherine, ed. 2020. Agricultural extension: Global status and performance in selected countries. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293755

Introduction

DLEC galvanizes diverse extension and advisory services stakeholders to measurably improve agricultural extension programs, policies and services. DLEC accomplishes this objective through three interrelated sets of activities: diagnostic studies, engagements, and communities of practice. DLEC is led by Digital Green in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS). DLEC is a five-year project ending on June 30, 2021.

The Project

Our Activities

Targeted studies that identify opportunities and recommend areas for public, private, and donor investment in extension and advisory services. DLEC has completed 19 diagnostic studies, including 10 in-depth country-level studies and 4 specialized studies of youth inclusion in extension.

Action research activities that build local capacity and generate evidence on how to improve extension and advisory services. DLEC has conducted 12 engagements across 9 countries.

Platforms that mobilize national, regional, and global communities to advocate for scaling up proven extension and advisory service approaches. DLEC has strengthened 4 regional and 6 national communities of practice, facilitated knowledge-sharing in 40 events, including annual Community of Practice convenings and webinars, and shared learnings in 65 external events.

Diagnostics:

Engagements:

Communities of Practice:

DLEC By The Numbers

countries

(diagnostic studies, event reports, journal articles, conference proceedings, blogs, and factsheets)

100 publications

diagnostic studies

engagements in 9 countries

community of practice events, webinars, and other knowledge-sharing events organized by DLEC

farming households have improved extension and advisory services due to DLEC

conferences attended where DLEC learnings were shared to a wide audience

1.3 Million

77 partners

including government, nongovernmental organizations, and private sector actors, have been influenced by DLEC, adopting recommendations to improve extension and advisory services

Over 1,200

unique page views of DLEC resources page with diagnostic studies, factsheets, and reports

822

Twitter followers

DLEC has implemented 12 engagements in 9 countries, has produced diagnostic studies on extension and advisory systems for 13 countries, and has mobilized national Communities of Practice in 6 countries, in total reaching stakeholders in 17 countries.

DLEC Across the World

Bangladesh

Diagnostic: Bangladesh: Desk Study of Extension and Advisory Services Engagement: A transport-to-market mobile solution provided 5,000 smallholder farmers access to markets to sell 18k+ metric tons of fresh fruit and vegetables generating US$4 million in sales. Community of Practice: Mobilized.

Bangladesh

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Ethiopia

Engagement: An impact evaluation showed up to 37% greater likelihood of smallholder farmers receiving advice/training via video and adopting improved technologies. DLEC also tested a holistic digital suite of tools to provide localized farmer-centric advice on fall armyworm mitigation.

Ethiopia

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Diagnostic: Youth in Extension and Advisory Services: Guatemala

Guatemala

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Diagnostic: Guinea: Desk Study of Extension and Advisory Services Strengthening Partnerships and Professionalization in Agricultural Extension in Guinea Engagement: DLEC is supporting the creation of a national extension and advisory services country forum to foster collaboration, learning and coordination. Community of Practice: Country forum formed.

Guinea

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Diagnostic: Honduras: In-depth Assessment of Extension and Advisory Services Engagement: DLEC built the capacity of the national government agency overseeing extension provision on participatory and best-fit extension models to reach smallholder farmers. Community of Practice: Mobilized.

Honduras

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Diagnostic: Liberia: Desk Study of Extension and Advisory Services

Liberia

Engagement: DLEC trained county government extension agents to develop and disseminate customized digital content on fruit-fly prevention for mango farmers. Community of Practice: Mobilized.

Kenya

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Diagnostic: Malawi: Desk Study of Extension and Advisory Services

Malawi

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Diagnostic: Mali: In-Depth Assessment of Extension and Advisory Services

Mali

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Diagnostic: Mozambique: Desk Study of Extension and Advisory Services

Mozambique

Community of Practice: Mobilized.

Myanmar

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Diagnostic: Youth in Extension and Advisory Services: Niger Analysis of Digital Agriculture Extension and Advisory Services in Niger

Niger

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Diagnostic: Nigeria: In-depth Assessment of Extension and Advisory Services Engagement: Video-enabled extension resulted in dairy processors doubling the quantity of milk processed and reducing the rejection rate for spoiled milk from 40% to zero. DLEC also tested most impactful agronomic practices in the rice value chain, resulting in 23–25% yield increase compared with control plots. Community of Practice: Mobilized.

Nigeria

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Diagnostic: Rwanda: Desk Study of Extension and Advisory Services Youth in Extension and Advisory Services: Rwanda Engaging Young Agripreneurs: Options to Include Youth in Private Sector Extension and Advisory Services in Rwanda and Uganda Engagement: Incentive schemes to improve the performance of volunteer farmer-promoters led to a 37% increase in adoption of good agricultural practices and an 8% increase in farmer knowledge. DLEC worked closely with the Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Weze Activity to train 33 youth extension agents in video-enabled extension and customize six New Extensionist Learning Kit (NELK) modules to the local Rwandan context. DLEC conducted a survey of 500 extension agents to understand digitization readiness and capacities.

Rwanda

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Diagnostic: Senegal: In-depth Assessment of Extension and Advisory Services

Senegal

Engagement: DLEC trained private sector seed companies to produce and disseminate videos to build awareness about high-quality seed among smallholder farmers.

South Sudan

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Diagnostic: Village Agent Model Study: Likely Effects on the Ugandan Agricultural Sector Engaging Young Agripreneurs: Options to Include Youth in Private Sector Extension and Advisory Services in Rwanda and Uganda Engagement: A field experiment found that providing information to both male and female household members led to more joint decision-making, increased knowledge retention, and greater uptake of practices. DLEC also tested the effectiveness of integrated ICTs; households that were shown videos on how to become better maize farmers performed significantly better on a knowledge test and reported 10 percent higher maize yields. Community of Practice: Mobilized.

Uganda

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Guatemala

Guinea

Honduras

Kenya

Liberia

Malawi

Mali

Mozambique

Myanmar

Niger

Nigeria

Rwanda

Senegal

South Sudan

Uganda

A review of DLEC’s studies and reports provide the following “best-fit” insights about strengthening local extension capacity:

Key Recommendations

Pluralism

Enabling environment

Curriculum development and tailoring

Women in extension and advisory services

Youth in extension and advisory services

Digital extension and ICTs

Climate change and resilience integration

Monitoring, evaluation and learning

Nutrition-sensitive extension approaches

Pluralistic extension and advisory systems, which include government, donors, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector, are more effective when all partners achieve desired outcomes. Coordination is key to ensuring that all stakeholders support each other and avoid replication. There is a trend toward privatization of sustainable business models (which requires service bundling given the poor track record of fee-for-extension models). Government plays a key role in coordination.

Pluralism

DLEC conducted 4 studies focusing on needs and strategies for including youth in extension and advisory services, both as recipients and providers of services. The design of interventions should take youth heterogeneity (level of education, urban vs. rural, access to digital tools, etc.) into account. Interventions should include digital tools, given that youth tend to be familiar with these technologies. More in-depth studies are needed to identify the right incentives and opportunities to bring youth into agriculture and extension and advisory services.

Youth in extension and advisory services

Extension and advisory services training curricula must be overhauled to be market-oriented, relevant, and inclusive of youth and women, and to professionalize extension staff through in-service and continuing education. Topics should include soft skills, business and market skills, and gender, youth, and nutrition-sensitive approaches. The New Extensionist Learning Kit, developed by GFRAS and used by DLEC, contains 13+ modules that can be used as a starting point to tailor curricula to the local context.

Curriculum development and tailoring

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Include women in training and provide them with opportunities to become extension agents. Ensure that training sessions and extension are held at a time when women are able to attend. Targeting women within the household (as opposed to only the male co-head) with extension information has a positive effect on different domains of empowerment. These include women’s knowledge of agronomic practices, their participation in agricultural decision-making, and their adoption of recommended practices and inputs. DLEC recommends more in-depth studies focusing on women in extension and advisory services that highlight specific ways (incentives, opportunities) that women's participation can be ensured, considering the local context. Featuring women as role models in information campaigns can create opportunities for greater involvement of women, and in campaigns targeted at women can stimulate women’s individual decision-making and action.

Women in extension and advisory services

woman involved as recipient woman involved as messanger

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knowledge decision-making adoption input use

SDs

Governments play an important role in creating an enabling environment for pluralistic extension and advisory services to flourish. National agricultural extension policies are needed to promote collaboration, define roles and responsibilities, and better coordinate the activities of public and private extension and of nongovernmental organizations and donors.

Enabling environment

DLEC found much emphasis the use of ICTs for extension and advisory services, but these need to be analyzed, tailored, and scaled up. Local context, including digital literacy, smartphone use, internet penetration, and cost of data plans are critical to digital extension interventions. The use of ICTs should be inclusive and not leave behind those with poor access to digital tools or lack of digital literacy.

Digital extension and ICTs

DLEC recommends using climate-sensitive approaches in extension and advisory services, as well as ensuring that approaches build resiliency. More in-depth studies on how to incorporate climate change considerations and resilience into curricula would be beneficial for farmers and extension agents.

Climate change and resilience integration

Providing extension agents with skills on nutrition-sensitive extension would provide added benefits to farmers who face food insecurity. Nutrition-sensitive approaches should be built into extension agent training curricula.

Nutrition-sensitive extension approaches

Developing monitoring and evaluation systems and capacities is important to track targets and understand the impact of extension and advisory service activities. In particular, metrics should be set for tracking extension impacts among marginalized populations, women, and youth. Developing standards for metrics for extension is important but difficult because of the many contextual needs. Creating a dashboard or suite of options, rather than a subset of standardized metrics, can be effective.

Monitoring, evaluation and learning

What's Next?

Stay in touch!

Stay in touch via the Community of Practice on GFRAS’s website. This community brings together extension and advisory services practitioners globally!

For more information about DLEC, visit the Agrilinks website or the project page.

Visit the Digital Green website for our latest fact sheet.

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This interactive is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of Digital Green and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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