Pluralité des connaissances scientifiques et intervention publique: agriculture, environnement, et développement durable. An example of the practical implications

Pluralité des connaissances scientifiques et intervention publique:

agriculture, environnement, et développement durable.

An example of the practical implicationsof one "Evidence based policy" principle.

The privatization of agricultural advisory services.

Rio Seminar, August, 29th, 2008.

Pierre LABARTHE1

1 INRA SAD-APT, Paris (France)

Outlines of the presentation

1. The privatization of agricultural extension systems.• A worldwide tendency.• Theoretical issues associated to privatization.• Focus: the production of knowledge and evidences in extension back-

office.

2. Study case.• Sanitary quality of cereal and the need for new knowledge.• Investments in back-office of a diversity of private extension suppliers.

3. Discussion. Some analytical issues raised by EBD • Privatization and the decrease of the level of evidences produced by

extension. Issues for farmers and policy makers.• Limits and potential of the EBD method and the costs of the production

of evidences



Section 1.Privatization of agricultural extension.Theoretical issues and controversies.


Definitions and new issues associatedto agricultural extension services

A definition of agricultural extension: services aimed at supporting technical change at farm level thanks to the exchanges of information and the production of knowledge (Labarthe 2006)

Back-office and front-office activities (Chase 1978)• Front-office: direct interactions between farmers and advisers (“face-to-face”)• Back-office: activities out of direct relations with beneficiaries: R&D activities for the production of knowledge (experiments, construction of data bases, ), administrative tasks, etc.

New needs for agricultural extension (climate change, new rules for international trades, food safety standards etc.)

Extension Privatization :a worldwide tendency

Some definitions• Privatization: supply of services by private companies• Commercialization: services charged to farmers (individually, 100%)• A diversification of suppliers: private consultancy, software firms, input suppliers, applied research institutes, expertise centers, etc.

A reform promoted by International Institutions such as the World bank (Umali and Schwartz 1994)

A tendency both in North and south countries (Rivera 2000)• Europe: United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands, etc.• South-America: Chile, Uruguay, etc.• Africa: Benin, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, etc.• Asia: Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, etc.

Researches about agricultural extension Ergonomy

• micro analysis of the relations between farmers and advisers (Cerf and

Maxime 2006) and participatory approach of the design of back-office tools

Sociology. • Inter-relations between the different public/private settings of financing and management of extension and the structure of farmers between different groups (Rémi 1984, Moumouni 2007)

• Competences of advisers (Brives 2001)

Political economics• extension as an institutional arrangements (Allaire 1988, Labarthe 2006)• inequalities of access to extension between farmers (Mundler et al. 2005)

Management and innovation studies• systemic analysis of networks and linkages (Roling 1988)

Economics• logics or strategies of performance of suppliers (Labarthe 2006)

• impact of investment in extension on agricultural productivity at micro (Davis et al 2008) or sectoral level (Evenson 1988)

Scientific controversies about the effects of agricultural extension privatization:

Controversies about the relative effectiveness of private and public extension services:

• on farm or agricultural sector productivity (Espositi 2000, Dinar et al 2007)• on innovation systems (Leeuwis 2000)

Controversies about the consequences of privatization on extension front-office activities

• demand-driven extension (Carney 1998)• exclusion of farmers (Berdégué 2002)

Controversies about the consequences of privatization on extension back-office activities?

• qualitative analysis of the transformation of extension services back-office and of the level of evidences produced (limits and potential of the EBP method?)

Agricultural extension and the production of evidences

The production and diffusion of evidence: a purpose of agricultural extension: “ farmers tend to adopt innovations once they have been shown some evidences about the return they can expect from this

adoption” (van den Ban 1984)

A diversity of evidences:• expertise of advisers (knowledge about farmers’ local conditions of production, management, goals and performance)• standardized observations: network for the observations of the state of production (plant contamination, etc.)• experiments (trials about the effectiveness of different agricultural inputs)

Question: what is the impact of privatization on these different back-office activities for the production of evidences in front of new technical problems for farmers?



Section 2.Study case.

Privatization of extensionand the transformations of back-office activities

in front of food safety problems


Sanitary quality of agricultural commodities and the needs for new knowledge

Discovery of natural toxins in agricultural products• ex: Deoxynivalenol (DON), a toxin produced by a natural fungi (Fusarium Roseum) within a diversity of productions (cereals, etc.)

New regulations about these toxins (standard about maximum concentration of toxin allowed in products)

• a condition for the access to markets• a condition for the access to subsidies (Europe)

A need for new knowledge and extension services• no direct available solution and new knowledge implied (biochemistry etc.)• the necessity of systemic innovations: control of varieties AND sewing dates AND soil practices• the DON contamination is dependant of local conditions (soil type, quantity of rain, etc.)• the DON contamination to be solved at farm level through specific solutions

Sanitary quality of farm commodities and the privatization of farm extension

Study case: investments in back-office of private extension suppliers / DON problem in Zeeland (the Netherlands)

The main private extension suppliers for cereal production in the Netherlands• Input suppliers (farmers’ cooperatives or private traders) Front-office costs integrated in the trades for input (or output) Back-office costs integrated in input trade + joint investments of Agro-

industry

• Private consultancy cabinets Front-office and back-office financed by individual services charged to

farmers

• Firms commercializing software (expert systems based on agronomic modeling)

Front-office and back-office financed by the number of software sold.

Back-office investments of private extension suppliers / food safety problems

Back-office investments of input suppliers• Experiments aimed at testing the impact of new varieties and new

chemicals for fighting against the Fusarium roseum. • Monitoring and investments in experiments dependant of the Agro-

Industries that produce the chemicals and varieties tested. controversies about the validity of the result of the experiments

Back-office investments of software firms• Development of new agronomic models based on published agronomic

models results (statistic correlations between climate, seed varieties and contamination data)

• No experiments in the local contexts of clients controversies about the validity of the statistical models

Back-office investments of consultancy cabinets• Training of advisers only. No investments in R&D activities about food safety problems



Section 3.Discussion.

Limits and potential of the EBD method.


Privatization on the production of evidences Privatization had transformed the investments in back-office of agricultural extension suppliers

EBP analytical framework a decrease of the level of evidences produced?

1. Opinion of respected authorities, based on clinical experience, descriptive studies or reports of expert committees.

2. Evidence from historical comparisons. Evidence from cohort or case-control analytic studies.

3. Evidence from well-designed controlled trials without randomization.

4. Evidence obtained from at least one properly randomized controlled trials.

EBP hierarchy of evidences

Level of

evidence

Level of evidence

1. Opinion and expertise of

advisers

2. Evidence from time-series data

and controlled observations

3. Evidence from controlled farm

trial without randomization.

4. Evidence from controlled field

trial with randomization

Evolution of the evidences produced by suppliers

Former Public

Extension department

Private consultants

Input suppliers ?

No transparency of data and

trials

?No

transparency of data and

trials

Software firms

Issues raised by the lack of evidences. For the farmers

• Some farmers (small farms, part-time farms, organic farms) lack relevant knowledge about effective solutions to deal with sanitary problems:• Because of access problems (front-office)• Because of a lack of R&D relevant investment in back-office

• Whereas front-office might be more demand-driven, farmers loose control and monitoring about back-office production of evidences

For the farm extension suppliers• Private extension suppliers are dependant on external investments Consultancy cabinets and software companies are dependant on the

quality of the researches and of training of engineers and technicians within public Universities of Agronomy

Input suppliers are dependant of investments of Agro-industries

For the state• Loss of capabilities of monitoring of the extension systems apart from

advertisement campaigns or control procedures• Loss of capabilities of evaluation of the scientific and empirical contents

of extension services back-office risks of technological lock-in

EBD, Extension services and biodiversity

New issues raised in front-office• a territorial issue a need to reach new public (small farms, etc);• a need for new competences (ecology, species classification).

New issues raised in back-office• a need for new knowledge (ecology, etc.)• change in the procedures of observations : spatial changes (from field to field and field margins and farms), and time-series of observations) and temporal changes (pluri-annual observations)• a need for new systemic experiments (farm level)

Potential and difficulties for the applications of the EBD method

• proposes tools for providing scientific knowledge (state-of-the-art, meta-analysis of data, etc.)• lack of taking into account of the costs of the production of evidences: cost of scientific reviews, cost of data productions

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Pluralité des connaissances scientifiques et intervention publique: agriculture, environnement, et développement durable. An example of the practical implications