What is the most effective and cost-efficient combination of extension activities to achieve the desired rate of adoption and practice change? What is the expected return on investment from an extension programme? Does the expected return justify the investment needing to be made?

I’m relatively new to the “change” space compared to the other contributors around me, but these are some of the questions I have worked with clients to answer.

I finished studying agricultural economics at Massey University in Palmerston North in 2019. Since then, I have been working with clients to support the design, implementation and evaluation of their agricultural extension efforts. My particular interests are twofold:

1. How the principles of microeconomics can be used to understand how and why agents (in most cases, primary producers) make on-farm decisions given the information they have available to them, and
2. Estimating the marginal benefit (e.g. improved profitability, improved water quality, reduced emissions, etc.) attributed to a desired practice change and how that compares to the investment made in the programme to achieve the change.

I work with a range of clients from those implementing agricultural extension programmes to those funding them. This can mean working with conflicting interests on what an extension programme should be achieving, and the timeframe it should be achieving it within. For example, funders (e.g. industry bodies, government and policymakers) want to see positive returns on their investment within a particular timeframe (perhaps stipulated by legislation), while providers (e.g. industry bodies, government and policymakers) want to see agents achieve sustainable practice change by going through the full adoption process (e.g. awareness, attitude, knowledge, skills). What we’ve learnt is that agricultural extension programmes will generally achieve a positive return on investment given the disparity in produce capability (e.g. the difference between the most and least capable farmers). However, positive returns do require the programme to be developed robustly with a critical assessment of how and where resources should be allocated.

I look forward to posting how my colleagues and I have used the principles of economics to support our clients address the conflicting interests to implement effective and cost-efficient agricultural extension programmes.