Empirical Study of the Effect of Agricultural Extension Services on Smallholder Farmer Productivity in Nigeria

Agricultural extension services are a public investment intended to diffuse knowledge and improve smallholder productivity, and empirically measuring their effect across Nigeria provides evidence for the design and funding of extension programmes. This study empirically examined the effect of agricultural extension services on smallholder farmer productivity in Nigeria using data from the 2019 Nigeria General Household Survey Panel covering 5,900 farm households across six geopolitical zones. Extension service contact was operationalised as any contact with an agricultural extension officer in the preceding season. Farm productivity was measured as output value per hectare. A propensity score matching approach was applied to control for selection bias in extension service receipt. Results showed that extension service contact was associated with a significant 18.7 percent productivity premium over non-contact farmers (ATT = 0.187, 95 percent CI: 0.143 to 0.231). The productivity effect was largest for adopters of improved seed varieties (32.4 percent premium). Zone-level analysis revealed that the productivity effect was largest in the North West zone (24.1 percent), where baseline productivity was lowest. Female farmers showed smaller productivity gains from extension contact (11.3 percent), suggesting that gender-blind extension modalities limit effectiveness. The study provides nationally representative empirical evidence on extension service impacts and recommends increasing the density of extension officers, designing female farmer-specific extension modalities, and linking extension contact with input subsidy provision to maximise productivity effects.

Keywords: agricultural extension, smallholder productivity, Nigeria, propensity score matching, farm household survey