The impact of access to agricultural advisory services on input use and farm performance: Evidence from Senegal

Abstract

Performant agricultural advisory services (AAS) in Africa are crucial for improving the agricultural productivity and food security of the farm households. Yet, evidence-based study on the impacts of AAS on farm performance are scarce, especially in West African countries. This study evaluates the impact of access to AAS on input use and farm performance in Senegal, employing the instrumental variable and control function approaches accounting for selection bias. The approaches are also employed to several sub-samples to see if the impacts are heterogeneous across crop types and fertilizer use, and matching techniques are applied to test the robustness of the results. Results show that the highest positive impact of AAS is on yield, while the impacts on gross margin and improved seeds uptake are very modest. Access to AAS has no effect on fertilizer uptake. It also finds that AAS impacts positively cereal production and farmers using no fertilizer but has no effect on the legume and horticultural crop production and on farmers using fertilizer. Given the Senegalese government and donors have put a lot of effort into developing an efficient AAS system, a consideration of the identified weaknesses is required to improve its efficiency. [EconLit Citations: Q12, Q16]