Market-oriented extension and farming efficiency in small-scale maize farmers: evidence from Northern Vietnam

Purpose Northern Vietnam is a mountainous area where most farmers' livelihoods depend on maize production. Beside training in farming techniques, since 2013 extension courses on market access have been gradually delivered to maize farmers to help them save production costs and increase earnings. Design/methodology/approach By applying robust regression and Tobit models to estimate technical efficiency (TE), the difference-in-difference (DID) technique is used in this study to determine the change in the TE of 1,035 farmers in the period 2013-2015 in Northern Vietnam. Findings The DID estimator indicated the initial success of extension courses by showing a faster increase in the TE of the receivers compared to that of non-receivers. However, co-operation in production and marketing by maize farmers and access to micro-credit resulted in an insignificant impact on the TE of maize farmers in 2015. These low impact results highlighted the inefficiency of the extension and micro-credit programmes and that raised the concern of policymakers. The distance to local market signifies the determination of farmers on their crops affected by how close their location to their input/output marketplaces. Research limitations/implications The Land Policy of the government should take into careful consideration measures to exploit all potential production and to mitigate poverty as well as foster the development of the region. Originality/value The expansion of extension courses on access to market has been recognised as an effective method to increase farmer's efficiency.