Speakers: Travis Lybbert, Associate Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, and David J Spielman, Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.
For the rural poor in many developing countries, welfare improvements are typically contingent on enhancements in agricultural productivity. With reductions in government support for public research and extension in many such countries, the dissemination of new agricultural technologies that enhance productivity is increasingly shaped by the private sector. For many technologies, however, the private sector lacks the information and incentives required to serve the needs of small-scale, resource-poor farmers.In these cases, a variety of targeting mechanisms are often proposed to encourage technology dissemination, ranging from subsidies provided by the public sector to promotional discounts distributed by the private sector.
