Impact of Agricultural Extension Services on Fertilizer Use and Farmers’ Welfare: Evidence from Bangladesh

Abstract

Although many studies have assessed the impact of extension, most treat the presence or absence of extension as a binary variable to test treatment effects, and fewer investigate how the type of provider (e.g., govt./private) and the frequency of the contact (number of extension visits) impact farm household welfare. To address this knowledge gap, this article investigates the impact of agricultural extension access, frequency, and provider type on chemical fertilizer application, crop yield, and profit. Data from a nationwide survey in 2015 in Bangladesh, a case country with a heavy over-application of urea fertilizer, are the basis for the endogenous switching regression approach to control for potential self-selection and endogeneity. The empirical results revealed significant differences in the outcomes for farmers who had just one extension contact, more than one extension contact, and those who accessed private provisions. We found that farmers who frequently accessed extension used significantly less urea fertilizer than farmers who accessed extension only once. Farmers who accessed extension more frequently also experienced a statistically significantly higher yield and profit from cropping. Private extension access appeared to result in statistically significantly higher incomes but not reduced urea fertilizer application rates. Our results suggest that a more nuanced understanding can be gained from extension source and frequency treatment effects modelling than with the presence or absence of the extension binary variable formulation that is most common in the literature.