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Can women's self‐help groups improve access to information, decision‐making, and agricultural practices? The Indian case

Effective agricultural extension is key to improving productivity, increasing farmers’ access to information, and promoting more diverse sets of crops and improved methods of cultivation. In India, however, the coverage of agricultural extension workers and the relevance of extension advice is poor....

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Raghunathan, Kalyani, Kannan, Samyuktha, Quisumbing, Agnes R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6853198/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31762523
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/agec.12510
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author Raghunathan, Kalyani
Kannan, Samyuktha
Quisumbing, Agnes R.
author_facet Raghunathan, Kalyani
Kannan, Samyuktha
Quisumbing, Agnes R.
author_sort Raghunathan, Kalyani
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description Effective agricultural extension is key to improving productivity, increasing farmers’ access to information, and promoting more diverse sets of crops and improved methods of cultivation. In India, however, the coverage of agricultural extension workers and the relevance of extension advice is poor. We investigate whether a women's self‐help group (SHG) platform could be an effective way of improving access to information, women's empowerment in agriculture, agricultural practices, and production diversity. We use cross‐sectional data on close to 1,000 women from five states in India and employ nearest‐neighbor matching models to match SHG and non‐SHG women along a range of observed characteristics. We find that participation in an SHG increases women's access to information and their participation in some agricultural decisions, but has limited impact on agricultural practices or outcomes, possibly due to financial constraints, social norms, and women's domestic responsibilities. SHGs need to go beyond provision of information to changing the dynamics around women's participation in agriculture to effectively translate knowledge into practice.
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spelling pubmed-68531982019-11-21 Can women's self‐help groups improve access to information, decision‐making, and agricultural practices? The Indian case Raghunathan, Kalyani Kannan, Samyuktha Quisumbing, Agnes R. Agric Econ Original Articles Effective agricultural extension is key to improving productivity, increasing farmers’ access to information, and promoting more diverse sets of crops and improved methods of cultivation. In India, however, the coverage of agricultural extension workers and the relevance of extension advice is poor. We investigate whether a women's self‐help group (SHG) platform could be an effective way of improving access to information, women's empowerment in agriculture, agricultural practices, and production diversity. We use cross‐sectional data on close to 1,000 women from five states in India and employ nearest‐neighbor matching models to match SHG and non‐SHG women along a range of observed characteristics. We find that participation in an SHG increases women's access to information and their participation in some agricultural decisions, but has limited impact on agricultural practices or outcomes, possibly due to financial constraints, social norms, and women's domestic responsibilities. SHGs need to go beyond provision of information to changing the dynamics around women's participation in agriculture to effectively translate knowledge into practice. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019-08-19 2019-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6853198/ /pubmed/31762523 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/agec.12510 Text en © 2019 The Authors. Agricultural Economics published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Association of Agricultural Economists This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Raghunathan, Kalyani
Kannan, Samyuktha
Quisumbing, Agnes R.
Can women's self‐help groups improve access to information, decision‐making, and agricultural practices? The Indian case
title Can women's self‐help groups improve access to information, decision‐making, and agricultural practices? The Indian case
title_full Can women's self‐help groups improve access to information, decision‐making, and agricultural practices? The Indian case
title_fullStr Can women's self‐help groups improve access to information, decision‐making, and agricultural practices? The Indian case
title_full_unstemmed Can women's self‐help groups improve access to information, decision‐making, and agricultural practices? The Indian case
title_short Can women's self‐help groups improve access to information, decision‐making, and agricultural practices? The Indian case
title_sort can women's self‐help groups improve access to information, decision‐making, and agricultural practices? the indian case
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6853198/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31762523
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/agec.12510
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