Abstract

China operates the world's largest system of extension services, but knowledge about its effectiveness is limited. Using farm survey data and a stochastic meta-frontier production function, this study investigates the impact of extension services on the technical efficiency of crop-specific farms in China. Results reveal that extension services have a statistically significant and strongly correlated relationship with farm technical efficiency and that different sources of extension have an inconsistent impact on it. Crop-specific farms require distinct extension provision whose content is designed to match farmers' needs, and hence a pluralistic and well-functioning system of extension provision should be developed.

Keywords

crop-specific farms; extension services; stochastic metafrontier analysis; technical efficiency

Published in

Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy
2023, Volume: 45, number: 1, pages: 436-459

SLU Authors

• Lagerkvist, Carl-Johan

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Huang, Wei

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG1 End poverty in all its forms everywhere
SDG4 Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all


UKÄ Subject classification

Economics


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13209

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/114996