Does agricultural extension pay? A case study for a new crop, lupins, in Western Australia
研究了西澳大利亚州羽扇豆采纳的地区差异，评估公共和私营部门推广活动的净经济效益，发现两者均促进了农民采纳，尤其是提前了扩散曲线的启动时间。
Compared to studies evaluating the benefits from agricultural research, there are relatively few empirical studies of the net economic benefits of agricultural extension, and even fewer that consider both public and private sector extension effort. In this study we examine regional differences in the adoption of lupins in Western Australia (WA) in order to estimate the net economic benefits of public and private sector extension. Impacts of extension and other variables on adoption were analysed for 40 shires using multivariate regression analysis. The results suggest that both public and private extension activities influenced farmer uptake of lupins, particularly by bringing forward the start time of the diffusion curve. Economic benefits of extension, based on the statistical analysis, were combined with costs of extension estimated from public sector records and surveys of private sector extension agents and used to estimate the net present value of extension investments by the public and private sectors in the study area. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.