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Assessing the Relationships Between Property Rights and Technology Adoption in Smallholder Agriculture: A Review of Issues and Emperical Methods
(2000) Place, Frank; Swallow, Brent M.
"Studies of the relationships between property rights and technology adoption are complicated in several respects. First, there are challenges involved in defining and measuring property rights and tenure security. Second, there are several different valid purposes for undertaking such studies and each purpose may require a different approach. Third, there are a number of difficult theoretical and empirical issues involved in such studies, particularly in defining technology, identifying key dimensions of property rights, and accounting for the endogeneous determination of property rights. Through a synthesis and evaluation of previous studies, this paper identifies key issues and develops guidelines for conducting research on the relationships between property rights and technology adoption in smallholder agriculture. It seeks to benefit researchers and policy makers wishing to undertake or interpret empirical research. The topics addressed in the paper are: definition of scope and terms; key issues pertaining to the relationships between technology adoption and property rights variables; data collection and measurement issues; and analyses and interpretation of findings. The primary target groups for this paper are researchers and policy analysts."
Combining Growth and Social Protection in Weakly Integrated Rural Areas
(2002) Farrington, John; Gill, Gerald J.
"Growth-focused strategies, especially for rural Africa, are making a comeback. One important question is what such growth might do to reduce rural poverty, and, increasingly, what potential it offers for reducing the risks of civil strife in neglected areas. For some countries, rural areas will continue to contain the majority of poor for many decades, and the majority of these live in areas weakly integrated into markets, so that the size and timing of impacts from growth in better integrated areas are uncertain. Is social protection (in the form of resource transfers) the only viable strategy for the more remote areas in the meantime, or are there worthwhile interventions for these that promote appropriate agricultural or non-farm growth, perhaps incorporating wider interpretations of social protection? The responses to these questions discussed below are piecemeal and tentative, and some are far from new, but this area of debate is here to stay, and merits more detailed study if the best use is to be made of scarce resources."
Creating a Policy Environment for Pro-Poor Agricultural Extension: The Who? What? and How?
(2002) Farrington, John; Christoplos, Ian; Kidd, Andrew; Beckman, Malin
"Agricultural extension has much to offer the rural poor, providing that they are perceived not merely as producers, but also consumers and labourers, and that appropriate wider policies are in place. However, agricultural extension policy in many countries over recent decades has been exclusively production-focused, institutionally monolithic, centrally directed, and organised on the premise that public sector extension structures can effectively reach down to village level. Partly in reaction to this, neoliberal voices have recently urged 'reform' in the sense of wide-scale privatisation of extension and removal of the state 'subsidy'that it implies. The study reported here challenges both approaches. Appropriate future policies will avoid past extremes of state-dominated or (hoped for) private sector provision. Instead, they will focus on identifying appropriate public and private roles and partnerships between them. A powerful policy driver will be to reduce the risk of 'durable disorder' to which remote areas are especially susceptible."
Farmer and Community Organizations in Agricultural Research and Extension: Functions, Impacts and Questions
(1994) Bebbington, Anthony; Merrill-Sands, Deborah; Farrington, John
"Many efforts have been made to introduce institutional and methodological changes intended to make agricultural research and extension programmes more responsive to the needs of small scale producers. Yet evaluations of these initiatives suggest that in the absence of sustained political and social pressure from and on behalf of small scale producers, agricultural development institutions are unlikely to become more accountable or demand responsive. "The paper concentrates on the role that farmers' organisations can play in exercising this pressure. Drawing on the early findings of a joint ISNAR/ODI research programme, the paper examines the conditions under which strong farmers' organisations can emerge. These conditions derive from both the external and the internal environment of these organisations. The paper then presents an analytical and methodological framework that can be used when examining the strength of farmers' organisations and the potential for effective links between them and research institutions. "The paper identifies different types of farmer organisations and the roles they play in research priority setting and planning, technology development, processing and input supply in relation to public sector and non-governmental organisations. It reviews the main strengths and weaknesses of farmers' organisations in performing these roles. These qualities are related to determining factors in the social, political and economic context and in the organisational and managerial structure of the organisations. This analysis provides a framework of issues that need to be addressed in any effort to work with and support these organisations as more effective means of pressuring, and working as partners with agricultural research institutions. In addition, a review of the experience and evolution of farmers' organisations in today's industrialised countries, and of organisations of large farmers in developing countries, will identify issues that need to be addressed in any effort to understand the nature and potentials of small farmer organisations."

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Browsing DLC by Subject "agricultural development--policy"