Science and Technology 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

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