Informations et ressources scientifiques
sur le développement des zones arides et semi-arides

Titre : Impacts of Input Supply, Agricultural Extension and Social Networks on Technology Adoption : Evidence from a Field Experiment in Ethiopia

Auteur : Mengie, Asresu Yitayew

Université de soutenance : Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel

Grade : Doctoral Degree Awarded by the Faculty of Agricultural and Nutrition Sciences 2022

Résumé partiel
Although many studies have shown that sub-Saharan African countries could increase agricultural productivity through improved technologies and farming techniques, the adoption of yield-enhancing technologies by smallholder farmers in the region remains very low and thus present a major developmental challenge. Agricultural extension services have been used to accelerate the adoption of yield-enhancing technologies and recently the extension approach advances from the best practice to the best fit based on site-specific information obtained from experimentation sites and demonstration fields. However, there is a lack of rigorous evidence on how the capacity of Development Agents, extension service delivery approaches, seeds supply in small bags and farmers’ networks affect technology adoption, farm yield and technical efficiency of farmers, especially using randomized control trials. This study contributes to the rapidly growing empirical literature by examining the role of these alternative information transmission mechanisms on technology adoption and farm performance among smallholder wheat farmers in Ethiopia. First, the study examines the impact of supplying seed in divisible quantities on smallholder farmers’ decisions to grow a new wheat variety, using intention-totreat analysis and machine learning methods to account for treatment effect heterogeneity among smallholders. To gain insights into the potential mechanisms through which seed delivery in small bags might influence farmers to adopt the new variety, the study uses causal mediation analysis. Second, the study employs intention-to-treat analysis to examine the impact of agricultural extension services on the adoption of improved wheat variety. Also, the least absolute selection and shrinkage operator is used to identify the most effective treatment among the large number of available treatments. The study also uses this model to investigate whether the effect of each treatment varies with the observed characteristics of individual farmers. Third, a spatial linear probability model is employed to explore the role of targeting farmers’ networks in agricultural extension services on the propensity to adopt new varieties. Fourth, using the mediated stochastic frontier model, the study examines the advisory services and technology channeling effects of extension services on farm yields and the technical efficiency of wheat farmers. The empirical results reveal that smallholder farmers who are treated with divisible seed packages tend to have a much greater tendency to adopt the new variety, in anticipation of increased future profits. The impacts appeared to vary based on the observed characteristics of individual farmers. Specifically, the intervention which made small seed bags available impacted relatively younger and poorer farmers the most

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