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The poor performance of public agricultural extension systems in developing countries engendered interest in pluralistic concepts of extension involving a variety of service providers. Within the reform agenda, modalities relying on private‐sector providers were perceived as a path to improvement. This paper aims to assess the potential and limitations of such modalities.

The paper discusses the conceptual underpinnings of these extension approaches, highlights theoretical and practical challenges inherent in their design, and provides an assessment of several performance‐based case studies described in the formal and informal literature.

Many of the modalities reviewed entail partnerships between the public sector, farmers' organizations or communities, and private‐sector providers. The paper concludes that while private‐sector participation can overcome some of the deficiencies of public extension systems, there are also challenges that have been faced, including misuse of public funds, insufficient accountability to farmers, inequitable provision of service, inadequate quality, and limited coverage of the wide range of farmers' needs.

The review suggests that private‐sector involvement in extension is no panacea. Extension systems need not be uniform, and will require different providers for different clienteles, with public providers and funding focusing more on smaller‐scale and less commercial farmers. The public sector may need to provide some regulatory oversight of private‐sector extension activities, particularly when public funding is involved.

The paper draws conclusions from a diverse range of experiences, some of which are recent, and provides comparative insights. It may be of interest to development scholars and practitioners.

Agricultural extension has played a central role in building the capacity of smallholders for decades. In efforts to improve extension outcomes, demand-driven approaches have emerged to better align extension content with smallholder context. The aim of this paper is to explore the challenges facing demand-driven extension in Papua New Guinea.

Exploratory case study methodology was used to explore the challenges facing demand-driven extension from the perspectives of 11 practitioners experienced in community engagement in Papua New Guinea.

Although there is great potential for demand-driven extension, this research found extension services in Papua New Guinea are ill-equipped to introduce and sustain a resource-intensive approach like demand-driven extension. It further found that rural farmers who extension organisations have long neglected lack the necessary skills and trust to gain from these services.

A limitation of this research is that it only reflects the opinions of practitioners working in Papua New Guinea. Further research featuring a broader sample of value chain actors connected to extension would provide a more complete understanding of the potential challenges to demand-driven engagement in this context.

With a growing interest among development projects to utilise demand-driven engagement with farmers, this research is the first study to explore the challenge facing this promising approach in Papua New Guinea.

When several machine tools are serviced by one industrial robot their idle times should be kept as short as possible. In this paper, a deterministic model is developed to optimise the idle time, including the possibility of machine breakdowns.

African agricultural mechanization could lead to a mechanization divide, where only large farms have access to machines. Technological solutions such as scale-appropriate machines and institutional solutions like service markets offer hope for more inclusive mechanization. Two-wheel tractor-based service markets combine both technological and institutional elements, but there is limited research on their economic viability and challenges.

We analyze the economic viability of two-wheel tractor-based service provision based on data from service providers in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, and Zimbabwe. We also examine the institutional framework conditions for such service providers based on qualitative interviews with these service providers and stakeholders such as machinery dealers, spare parts providers, and banks.

Two-wheel tractor-based service provision is economically highly viable, largely due to multifunctionality. Post-production services such as threshing and transportation are particularly lucrative. However, the emergence and economic sustainability of service providers can be undermined by bottlenecks such as access to finance, knowledge and skills development, access to fuel and spare parts, and infrastructure problems.

This is the first study on the economics of two-wheel tractor-based service provider models. Past studies have focused on large four-wheel tractors, but two-wheel tractors are different in many aspects, including regarding investment costs, repair and maintenance costs, capacity, and multifunctionality.

Cross sector collaboration, particularly the use of Multi-Sectorial Partnerships, has recently developed as a crucial element of efforts to deliver and improve public service outcomes across developing countries. Yet for collaborations initiated to respond to emergencies, these have to cope with both a fluid problem and the context of operation. We utilise a literature grounded framework and draw on publicly accessible data on the empirical case study of the National COVID-19 Task Force (NTF) in Uganda to discern important considerations for effective governance of cross-sector initiatives in emergencies. Based on the analysis, we argue that a careful mix of considerations in the structures, processes and actors realms enable collaborative initiatives to remain effective in a continually evolving and wide scale response in emergency contexts. We specifically underscore the primacy of the adoption of whole-of-government approach, cascading of identical collaboration structures to lower levels of government, adoption of a unified communication strategy, participatory resource mobilisation and active involvement of initiative's champions. We have reinforced the enduring relevance of cross-sector initiatives for addressing wicked problems, foreshadowed ingredients for more agile partnerships and mainstreamed the consideration of evolving context in the collaboration discourse.

This paper aims to examine the governance challenges confronted by a government microcredit program in Bangladesh following a case study approach.

A novel qualitative research tool called process net-map (PNM) was applied to develop a framework for visual understanding of the exact credit implementation process and to identify the actors responsible for creating governance challenges. Key informant interviews were also conducted to identify and distinguish the challenges faced by both the supply-side and demand-side stakeholders.

The findings reveal that the studied case faced problems in allocating adequate resources to human and physical capacity development. It was combined with the shortage of funds that made it impossible to meet the clients’ expectations. The lack of legal and regulatory framework disabled the organization from controlling political influence and corruption in the system. Moreover, the policy of lending only to groups proved counterproductive as it led to the exclusion of potentially viable borrowers.

The key recommendation of the study is on increasing the microcredit fund and a reform of the group lending policy along with several other recommendations.

The PNM is a newly developed participatory mapping technique that has not been applied in the field of microfinance. Therefore, the use of this method may add new knowledge of conducting an in-depth analysis of why such challenges are associated with mostly public microfinance programs and how they are linked to the implementation process. The challenges encountered are relevant for the implementation of developmental programs that are dependent on the allocation of public funds.

A research and development project disseminated ecological technologies to approximately 3,250 vegetable farmers through farmer field schools (FFS) in four districts of Bali and East Java provinces of Indonesia. This article aims to assess the economic sustainability of vegetable production after FFS participation.

A survey randomly sampled 500 farmers, comprised of FFS participants (50%) and non-FFS participants (50%). Based on 1,000 farm operations, this analysis employed input-saving technology as the fundamental model examined using the double-difference method. Simultaneous reduction of agrochemicals and improvement of productivity represent indicators of economic sustainability.

Results indicate that pesticide use decreased without jeopardising farm productivity; moreover, vegetable production increased. These findings indicate that the ecological technologies transferred through FFS significantly improved economic sustainability performance.

This study purposively selected farmers who grew tomato and chilli. Thus, the outcomes are not generalisable to other crops.

FFS continues to be an effective method for transferring agricultural technologies to farmer communities. Policymakers are recommended to use FFS for disseminating beneficial and sustainable technologies to broader agricultural communities.

The adoption of ecological technologies provides positive economic and ecological milieus.

This study employs a double-differences approach to verify input-saving technological progress. Therefore, the performance of economic sustainability attributable to the project intervention is theoretically justified.

This chapter investigates the coffee value chain in Latin America. By drawing on the concept of just transitions as a “connective tissue” between the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the discussion zooms in on the promise of agroforestry for environmental upgrading. The chapter concludes by providing examples of trade-offs between environmental, social and economic aspects.

Drawing on both the stakeholder theory and Carroll’s Corporate Social Responsibility Pyramid, this chapter explores sustainability practice challenges of a gold minning multinational enterprise in Ghana. Primary data was collected through observation and the interviewing of multi-stakeholder groups. We found that internal stakeholders perceive sustainability expenditure as costly. However, while employees of the case enterprise see the cost as depleting shareholders’ wealth, managers view them as investment with possible long-term benefits. Meanwhile, the external stakeholders perceive the gold mining enterprise’s sustainability expenditure as meagre and that beneficiary communities are not economically empowered to sustain those investments. Again, we found that government’s inability to clamp down illegal gold mining threatens economic and environmental sustainability. Additionally, members of the host community identify the lack of adequate employment opportunities within the entity as a hindrance to their economic empowerment. We submit that the resolution of the sustainability challenges would contribute to the balancing of stakeholders’ expectations: the conduct of ethical business through compliance to environmental laws; promotion of host communities’ social well-being; and improved economic returns for shareholders. By meeting the needs of stakeholders, gold mining enterprises could gain acceptance in their host communities and boost corporate reputation.

There seems to be no controversy about Nigeria being an agricultural country with food sufficiency up till the late 1970s. However, in recent times the country is finding it very difficult to provide sufficient food for the teeming population which has resulted in the majority of the country’s citizens slipping into poverty. The ability of the country to provide sufficiently for the citizens was a result of a lack of reliable and effective developmental and transformational strategies in the agricultural sector of the country which is a major employer of labour in the rural community. To this end, this chapter mainly focuses on factors inhibiting the development of agricultural companies in Nigeria and how to overcome the developmental barriers in the agricultural sector in Nigeria. The findings from the review show that the bane of the agricultural sector in Nigeria is due to the lack of an agricultural regulatory framework and policy transmission mechanism and over-dependence on oil revenue amongst other things (Adams, 2016). It is therefore imperative for the country to embark on the development of a reliable agricultural framework and model that will aid food sufficiency in the country.