SUMMARY xxv
sion service, as well as nongovernmental organizations and others providing agricultural advisory services through special projects, continued to operate in the same areas as the NAADS program and elsewhere. This is likely to cause over attribution of the estimated effects to the NAADS program, particularly where NAADS participants also benefited from other extension services, as was likely the result in Benin et al. (2011).
A useful follow-up to this study will be to look at the costs and benefits of investment in the program and assess the returns to such investment. In doing so, accounting for any general equilibrium effects will be critical. For example, the scaling out of the NAADS program to all parts of the country is likely to affect relative prices and may also require additional taxes to pay back the loan obtained to finance the program. From the production point of view, both effects mitigate the impact of the program, potentially leading to an overestimation of its benefits based on partial equilibrium analysis of the sort done here. However, reduced food prices, which benefit consumers as well as farmers that are net buyers of food, may cancel or outweigh the negative effect on producer surplus, leading to an overall welfare gain. Simi- larly, strengthening the capacity of farmers and service providers will affect the skill composition of the labor force and service providers, which in turn will likely affect the wage structure and cost of advisory services. An increase in aggregate demand for services would have similar effects on wages and costs. Thus including economic modeling techniques in assessing the returns will prove useful.
In assessing the benefits, one also needs to consider a range of other ben- efits that the program can be expected to generate, including the improved human resource skills associated with training and strengthening of local institutional capacity. For example, the training in technical and managerial areas that is provided to private service providers, extension staff, subject- matter specialists, and research staff will develop improved skills, which will contribute to productivity improvements not only on the farm but off. Training of village groups, community-based facilitators, farmer contact groups, and farmer forums at the local level will strengthen local institutional capacities and empower farmers to effectively demand advisory services. The improvements in both human resource skills and institutional capacity will generate benefits when used in nonagricultural economic and noneconomic activities as well.
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