Randomized agricultural adoption and smallholder farmers' welfare outcomes in South Ethiopia

Abstract

Harnessing agricultural technology can serve as a catalyst for progress in Sub Saharan Africa, enabling countries to ensure food insecurity. Inadequate agricultural technologies have caused smallholder farmers to depend heavily on traditional agricultural farming. This context consequently resulted in lower agricultural productivity in the region. To address this gap, this study analyzed the impact of the randomized adoption of improved cassava varieties on the welfare outcomes among cassava producing farmers in South Ethiopia. The study applied three round panel data collected from 1040 cassava producers between 2020 and 2024, who were the beneficiaries of the Rural Ethiopian Safety Net Program. The study employed three complementary adoption interventions among cassava producing farmers: (i) agronomic technical training, (ii) agronomic technical training plus improved varieties, and (iii) agronomic technical training plus improved varieties plus fertilizer. The study employed a difference-in-differences (DiD) estimator and two-stage instrumental variable (IV) models for data analysis. Moreover, the study compared the intent-to-treat (ITT) and treatment-on-treated (TOT) effects to estimate their effectiveness in estimating adoption likelihoods, intensity of adoption, and welfare impacts. The study revealed a positive and significant impact of the treatments on the probability of adopting the Hawassa-04 variety and its intensity. Similarly, the welfare outcome results of the ITT and TOT effects indicate that the treated households had shown an increase on consumption expenditure per capita, income per AEU, and the probability of food security compared with those of the control group. The finding of this study suggests implementing incentive-based interventions like providing farmers with robust technical training packages, subsidized improved cassava varieties, and fertilizer can significantly increase cassava production and well-being of the farming community.