Growth and Poverty Mailing List Archive

["James BISCOE" <<address removed>>]

Dick Tinsley is not wrong about the utility and uses to which extension is 
often put.

I suggest that DfID might make a useful contribution to enhancing rural 
standards of living if it were to promote the use of basic economics as a 
guideline and assessment tool in deciding which research results to promote and 
in packaging them in such a way as to asses their economic costs and benefits 
to the grower who is being asked to adopt them.
It is, in my experience, often most salutary to run a crude Partial Gross 
Margin Analysis on what is currently recommended and what ever refinements are 
being recommended. There is a difference in perspective between the scientist's 
ideal of maximum yield and the perspective of the farmer which wants maximum 
return on the resources invested over the least period of time. Bringing these 
two together through rough and ready economic analysis  gives field guidance as 
to what to recommend. Farmers are acutely economically aware and, even though 
they may not know the terminology, net present value, percentage rate of 
return, Gross Margin etc are all well known to them. Scientists seem often less 
aware in my experience.
There is little point in painstakingly developing a sophisticated and exact 
economic model, as by the time you have done that the season is over or prices 
have changed or some new pest or disease has surged ahead.
So, can DfID see its way to bringing field economics to the attention of 
scientists to assess their results by and to extension workers to make the 
recommendations which they promote more likely of adoption by farmers?
This would not be a quick process and probably not suited to a three year 
consultancy with visits every three months by air borne consultants. It might 
be more suited to sustained input to in service training and pre service 
education programmes, might be possibly promoted through a distance learning 
programme, and would no doubt benefit from a pilot project or two somewhere?
Thank you
James Biscoe
28/4/04
1015hrs