Access to Agricultural Extension Access of households to extension differs widely across the three study countries. Ethiopia, the country with the lowest GDP in the study, achieved the best outcome for women in terms of access to agricultural extension: 20 percent of the women covered in the sample received agricultural extension visits at home or on the farm. Twenty-seven percent of the men in the sample had access to agricultural extension visits, the same percentage as in Karnataka, India. Access varied widely across regions, however, ranging from 2 percent in Afar to 54 percent in Tigray. Moreover, a high level of access does not necessarily indicate utilization or good-quality service. As a result of the top-down approach and the focus on getting model farmers to adopt fixed technology packages, extension tends to neglect poor farmers, particularly women. Ethiopia’s extension system is not client oriented, and its system is rather unresponsive to user demand. The national goal is that women should account for 50 percent of extension users, but the team found many barriers to women’s participation in extension programs, including cultural norms and the inappropriateness of the “women’s development package” for female household heads. Access to extension is lowest in Ghana, where about 12 percent of maleheaded households received individual visits of agricultural extension officers and 10–15 percent attended group meetings organized by agricultural extension officers. There was some variation across agroecological zones. Access to livestock services was greatest in the savannah zone, where livestock is most important: 34 percent of male-headed households with livestock in this zone reported individual visits from a livestock officer. Despite the predominant role of women in agriculture in Ghana, just 2 percent of female household heads in the transition zone and none of the female household heads in the forest and savannah zones. Across the three zones, less than 2 percent of female spouses in male-headed households received agricultural extension visits. Access to livestock extension was better: 24 percent of female-headed households and 5 percent of female spouses in the transition zone received visits by livestock officers. However, neither group was visited in the forest zone. In the savannah zone, 15 percent of both female-headed households and female spouses were visited. Access to extension through group meetings and community meetings was not much better for female-headed households (2 percent in the forest zone and 4–6 percent in the transition zone; no such services were provided in the savannah zone). Female spouses in male-headed households had somewhat better access to both group and community meetings on agricultural and livestock issues (5–9 percent), indicating that spouses may either have more time to make use of these opportunities or accompany their husbands. Access to agricultural extension was also limited in Karnataka, India (although it was higher than the national average for India of 6 percent). Among households with land, 29 percent of male-headed households and
COMPARING THE THREE COUNTRIES
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