In collaboration with IPA Liberia, Agricorps, and 4-H Liberia, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of a school-based agricultural extension program on the spread of agricultural technologies and rural education. The program improved agricultural technology adoption, students’ livelihoods, and students’ education, with greater impacts when combined with parental and community engagement.

Adoption of modern agricultural practices remains low in low- and middle-income countries like Liberia, where 80 percent of the population depends on agriculture, despite significant efforts to promote them.¹ Evidence suggests that agricultural schools for youth can effectively promote knowledge sharing within farming communities. However, their impact on a broader, national level remains largely unknown.² Liberia also grapples with low school enrollment and over-age enrollment. The agricultural school program 4-H was founded to align agricultural extension and rural education. In this program, students join clubs and tend to school farms, receive regular extension visits alongside teachers on promoted agricultural practices and educational activities, conduct home garden projects, and participate in extracurricular events to develop farm management and life skills.

In partnership with Agricorps, 4-H Liberia, and IPA Liberia, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of the 4-H program on the adoption of modern agricultural practices by students and parents. A total of 197 schools across Liberia participated in the intervention, with 100 schools randomly receiving the 4-H program and 97 schools serving as the comparison group. Since the awareness of school events is typically low among parents in low-income countries, parental engagement was encouraged in a random subset of SBAE schools through promotional video sessions or invitations to annual farmer field days.

When parental engagement was included, the program was highly effective in increasing agricultural technology adoption—increasing students’ adoption of the main technique, bed preparation, by 18 percentage points (from 29 percent to 47 percent) and parents’ adoption by 11 percentage points (74 percent to 85 percent) relative to comparison group schools. Judging by the number of techniques adopted, the program increased parents’ adoption by 0.38 standard deviations, two to three times the impact of typical extension programs targeting adults.

Beyond the agricultural impacts, the progam also improved students’ education and aspirations. For instance, it reduced school dropouts by 5 percentage points (from 22 percent in a year), increased school attendance by 24 percent, and improved students’ annual savings by 92 percent. Altogether, researchers found that the pivotal effects from parental engagement were due to a critical rise in parent-student interactions. This includes parents’ visits to school farms and students’ management of farms and usage of new techniques outside schools, both of which improved parents’ exposure to new technologies.

Sources

^1.  Witinok-Huber, Rebecca, Steven Radil, Dilshani Sarathchandra, and Caroline Nyaplue-Daywhea. 2021. "Gender, place, and agricultural extension: a mixed-methods approach to understand farmer needs in Liberia." The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension 27 no. 4, 553-572.

^2. Federico Ceballos-Sierra, Mary Paula Arends-Kuenning and Anina Hewey. 2023. “Technology diffusion within families: experimental evidence from Nicaragua.” The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension 29 no3, 309-326. 

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