A new IFPRI-led study assessed the scaling up of agricultural technologies—that is, the approaches and methods that agricultural research and development organizations use to increase the share of households which are regularly using such technologies to improve their agricultural performance. Over the years, several technologies have been developed to help improve agriculture, particularly in developing country contexts. However, it has not been easy to scale up the technologies to make them impactful and sustainable. A recent study coordinated by Frank Place, Director of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), along with NOVA Business, explored this challenge by looking at the technologies and associated scaling up approaches, performance of the approaches used, and roadblocks encountered in scaling them up.
This study was supported by the CGIAR Research Program Policies, Institutions, and Markets, as part of its effort to strengthen the CGIAR country collaboration process. Malawi was selected given the volume of research and scaling up currently underway, including the upcoming Kutukula Ulimi m’Malawi (KULIMA) project. The study started with only CGIAR centers in mind, but was later broadened to learn more from a wider group of organizations. Information was collected from research and development organizations, private sector companies, public sector organizations, leaders of major projects, and key development partners through a survey and face-to-face interviews.
At a research seminar hosted at IFPRI Malawi on Tuesday, October 2nd, Frank Place and Joseph Dzanja (from NOVA Business) presented findings from this study, which identified a long list of technologies being scaled up as well as approaches used. The approaches were categorized into four main areas: (1) improving policy environment, (2) creating awareness of technology, (3) capacity building in understanding the technology, and (4) developing systems for making available physical products. The study found that all organizations are affected by the policy environment and that organizations play a role in helping to shape and formulate policies. In addition, the methods used in scaling up technologies are common for most organizations although they are applied differently. This means that organizations tend to adapt the approaches for scaling up a technology to suit their own needs and contexts. However, there is very little evidence on the performance of various methods used to date.
Key concerns
The study shows that there is little assessment of the scaling up methods as compared to existing research on the development of the technologies themselves, though organizations receive large grants to scale up the use of technology. This is mostly because scaling up technologies tend to be project-based with short term targets, which creates incentives for organizations not to divert resources into testing different approaches. In addition, though individual organizations do try to use good scaling approaches, there are potential inefficiencies and missed opportunities for collaboration because organizations often focus on their own technologies or locations. Another issue of concern is that the role of public agriculture extension within project-based funding tends to be ad hoc, as different organization use government extension workers in different ways to suit their project needs. This does not contribute to mainstreaming the wider extension system because a lot of organizations do not invest in strengthening the public extension system; rather, they often hire their own technical staff. There is also often free distribution of technologies at the beginning of projects, promoting a ‘handout mentality,’ which hinders private investments.
The presenters also noted that despite a need for more research on scaling up technologies, it is hard to find a useful research strategy around scaling up methods because it is a challenging area for research, confounded by attractiveness of the technology as well as the policy and regulatory environment.
Place and Dzanja proposed a number of recommendations to improve scaling up research. These include doing qualitative assessments of the methods used for scaling up and share the experiences through a formalized process, rethinking projects to be more amenable to longer term targets, thus enabling more analysis of methods within projects. To address other concerns such as lack of coordination, they call for more coordination across projects and sectors, with the national and district governments playing a more active role. Finally, there is need to advance policy reforms in the agricultural sector which are yet to be approved. Participants discussed the recommendations and offered comments, especially on the challenges in scaling up technologies.
The seminar presentation is available below.
