Privatization of advisory services and the quality of evidence for farmers?

This paper aims at better understanding the consequences of the privatization of extension services on the quality of the knowledge produced for and with the farmers. The originality of the study is that it does not focus on the front-office dimension of the services (the direct interactions between farmers and advisers), but rather on the back-office one (R&D investments in field and experimental trials, scientific watch, training, etc.). In that respect, we combined two analytical frameworks: i) the advances of service economics, which allow to better understand the strategies of private firms of extension services; ii) the debates derived from evidence-based policy approaches in public decision, which make it possible to assess the different types and levels of evidence that support the content of the advice. The analysis is based on field investigations in France (Ain), Germany (Brandenburg) and the Netherlands (Zeeland). It consisted in qualitative interviews (n=16 firms) with the managers of three types of service suppliers to farmers specialized in arable farming: private consultancy cabinets, input suppliers, and software suppliers. We could identify three logics of performance: "a service" logic associated with private consultancy cabinets, an "industrial" logic characterizing software suppliers, and a logic of segmentation implemented by input suppliers. A more specific inquiry related to knowledge about food safety showed the consequences of these logics beyond individual concerns of farmers. It demonstrates that the withdrawal of the state from the funding and management of extension may lower the level of evidence produced for the farmers, by substituting expertise to controlled trials and observations, and by giving a more and more important role to private investments related to upstream industries.