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Tropentag, October 5 - 7, 2011 in Bonn

"Development on the margin"


Effectiveness of Agricultural Extension Programs in Desert Areas: Case Study of Sugar Beet Program in Egypt

Mostafa Mohamed1, Stephan von Cramon-Taubadel1, Emad El Shafie2, Yasmeen Ammar3, Zeinab Magd2

1Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Dept. of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Germany
2Cairo University, Rural Sociology and Agricultural Extension Division, Egypt
3Desert Research Center, Socio-Economic Division, Egypt


Abstract


The Egyptian government has applied extensive programs for land reclamation as a strategy to meet rapidly growing demand for food. The public extension service has applied many programs to deliver technical support that is appropriate for the physical, financial and institutional conditions of the newly reclaimed lands. Sugar beet Program (SbP) is one of those programs, which is implemented in both old and new lands. SbP intended outcomes are improving Sugar beet Growers' (SbGs) knowledge and practices leading to increase production efficiency and profit. Nevertheless many studies have indicated that these programs are not effective. Furthermore most of these studies assess the impact of extension only on the adoption level, which is less informative regarding the applications? shortages and the environmental factors that could influence the program performance. The objective of this study is to elaborate our knowledge regarding the strengths and weakness of such programs according to when, where, and how such programs were planned, implemented and evaluated. These results could help policy makers to design more effective future programs. This study can be described as an ex-post assessment designed to explore the effectiveness of SbP, as a case study of the extension programs in the desert areas. A random sample was selected of 117 SbGs in Nubaryia region. All Extension Staff (ES) were involved in the study with a total number of 22. Three analytical procedures are applied: Path Analysis (PA) for exploratory purpose, Evaluation Logic Model (ELM) for model specification, and Content Analysis (CA) of 36 reports to describe the extension activities. The findings show that SbP had no significant impact on its intended outcomes. Regarding the ES qualifications and training, 72.7% have a school education and surprisingly 18.2% have non agricultural education. 90 % of the ES involving in writing reports regularly. The main limitations for this study are lack of information in the village level, and inconsistent data set as a result of the dissimilarity of the geographical administrative classifications among different governmental bodies.


Keywords: Agricultural extension, effectiveness, evaluation logic model, land reclamation, Nubaryia path analysis, sugar beet


Contact Address: Stephan von Cramon-Taubadel, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Agricultural Economics, Göttingen, Germany, e-mail: scramon@gwdg.de


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