Table 1: Exposure to agricultural advice in last 12 months

|Description|Full<br>Sample|Malawi|Nigeria|Uganda|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Households who received agricultural advice (% all HH-year obs.)<br>_of those:_|28.7|46.5|16.7|26.0|
|Average number of contacts|4.4|4.1|5.4|4.1|
|More than 2 contacts (%)|50.6|52.8|60.9|41.1|
|More than 10 contacts (%)|8.5|5.6|12.5|9.1|
|Received advice rated as useful or very useful<sup>_a_ </sup>(%)|84.6|80.0|91.2|87.0|
|Received advice rated as useless or bad<sup>_a_ </sup>(%)|8.0|8.8|3.3|9.9|
|Paid in order to receive advice (%)|7.6|0.9|14.2|13.5|
|Households who solicited advice (% all HH-year obs.)|19.5|35.0|12.4|15.3|
|Households who solicited advice (% HH-year obs. with advice)|76.0|89.3|76.5|60.1|
|Share of solicited contacts (% all contacts)|73.6|80.8|64.2|75.8|
|Observations|24,526|7,222|8,844|8,460|

_Source:_ Authors’ calculation based on survey data from the LSMS-ISA database (World Bank, 2018). _Notes:_ Agricultural advice measures in-person advice and excludes advice received through media (TV, radio, flyers, etc.).<sup>_a_</sup> Exact wording differs between countries (see Appendix B).

of advice that exclude advice obtained through media. On average, 29% of farmers report having received such advice. In Malawi (which generates 32% of its GDP in the agricultural sector and is known for its relatively strong policy focus on agriculture, see OECD/FAO, 2016), the number is 46%. Conditional on receiving advice, farmers have an average of 4 to 5 contacts a year. While 51% of farmers receiving advice report more than two contacts a year, only a few farmers seem to be involved in regular extension programs (such as monthly village or field school meetings). The majority of farmers (85%) that receive advice rate the received advice as useful, and less than 10% of farmers report having received advice that was useless. On average, less than 8% of households that received advice paid anything for it.<sup>24</sup> In addition, Table 1 indicates that in all countries the majority of extension contacts are solicited by farmers. The share of solicited contacts ranges between 64% in Nigeria to over 80% in Malawi (possibly reflecting the fact that Malawi features a relatively decentralized and demand-driven extension landscape; see Davis, 2008). More details are provided in Table A2 in the appendix.

Table 2 provides additional insights into the topics on which farmers receive advice. Almost all farmers (91%) who have been in contact with extension services received advice on agricultural production and processing. To a large extent, this involves advice about modern agricultural inputs such as new seed varieties, fertilizer, and pesticides. In addition, a third of farmers report having received advice on livestock production and animal care. With respect to different sources of agricultural advice, Table A3 in the appendix shows that government extension services are responsible for 79 to 94% of extension provided in Uganda and between 32 and 49% in Malawi. In Nigeria, where public

> 24Conditional on paying for advice, the average amounts paid are USD 6 in Uganda, USD 9 in Nigeria, and USD 18 in Malawi.

16