David Spielman

Special issue opening editorial: Designing, assessing and scaling approaches for integrated seed sector development

Assessing agricultural extension agent digital readiness in Rwanda

Effective agricultural extension and advisory services are a key component of efforts to achieve sustainable agricultural production, resilient livelihoods, and inclusive economic growth. These are all necessary elements for accelerating Rwanda’s agricultural transformation. Both extension and information and communication technologies (ICT) are important elements in Rwanda’s Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation. This paper examines the capacities of public and private agricultural extension agents in Rwanda and their readiness to use ICT in their work—that is, to be digitally equipped—and provides recommendations for enhancing agricultural extension capacities through expanding and effectively using ICT. To examine capacities and readiness, we use a representative survey of 500 public and private extension agents in Rwanda, augmented by qualitative data from a literature review and key informant interviews. To assess agents’ ‘digital readiness,’ we create two indices focused on their digital experiences and attitudes toward digital modernization.

Retrospective evaluation of scaling associated with the IITA Cassava Weed Management Project (CWMP): Final project

The Cassava Weed Management Project (CWMP), funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) from 2013-2018, aimed to promote the use of safe and environmentally friendly herbicides for effective weed control in cassava production in Nigeria. This retrospective evaluation, conducted by a consortium of experts from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Sahel Consulting Agriculture and Nutrition Limited, examined the extent to which the private sector has scaled up the herbicides tested and recommended by the CWMP, as well as the factors influencing companies’ decisions to register and deploy these products. The evaluation, conducted in 2023-2024, employed a mixed-methods approach that relied heavily on the qualitative approaches to uncover underlying factors affecting scaling and adoption. The methods included document reviews, key informant interviews (KII), focus group discussions (FGD) with cassava farmers, mystery shopper surveys of agro-dealer shops, and quantitative analysis of secondary data from sources like official company data and the Living Standard Measurement Study – Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). The evaluation findings indicate that the private sector has made notable efforts in scaling up some of the recommended herbicides, but the extent of scaling varies across different products. Relying on sales data from herbicide companies to estimate the number of cassava farmers who have adopted various herbicide products over the last five years, the evaluators found that Glyphosates stand out in terms of number of cassava farmers who have adopted these herbicides over this period. Owing to missing sales data from the herbicide companies, our reported estimates focus only on the number of farmers that purchased the herbicides in the most recent year of sale. We estimate that more than 200,000 cassava farmers used the herbicides Touchdown and Force-Up in 2023, and more than 120,000 cassava farmers used Sarosate in 2023. We found that only about 2,800 farmers used Primextra Gold in 2021. Gallant Super was also estimated to have been adopted by over 23,000 in 2023, Vigor adopted by over 5,000 farmers in 2023, and SlashaGold by about 4,500 cassava farmers. While these estimates are based on the best available data from the companies, it is important to exercise caution in citing these figures due to the lack of precise records of sales of specific herbicides to cassava farmers.