Extension services and the technical efficiency of crop-specific farms in China

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
    

Global goals (SDG)

SDG1 No poverty
SDG4 Quality education

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