Table 4 Findings from the causal impact analysis
Causal impact analysis: Did the PfR lead to technology adoption by farmers? | |
Change in knowledge, attitude and practice | Nigeria: Farmers learned about the technology but less learned about its health benefits. PfR improved awareness of Aflasafe by 67 percentage points among farmers, and 29 percentage points among cooks. Roughly 10 percent of farmers knew how to apply Aflasafe correctly, and 22 percent knew about the health concerns regarding aflatoxins Kenya: Farmer awareness about improved on-farm storage was raised. The program improved awareness of improved on-farm storage by 34 to 55 percentage points. In semi-structured interviews, farmers preferred using improved storage bags and bins to using pesticide Uganda: N/A Zambia: N/A |
Adoption of technology | Nigeria: Farmer uptake was significant in PfR targeted villages. The project improved farmer uptake of Aflasafe by 56 percentage points in villages targeted by PfR Kenya: Farmer uptake was significant in the large geographies targeted by the PfR. The project improved farmer uptake of improved on-farm storage by 23 percentage points in the Rift Valley and 6 percentage points in Eastern Province); from 5% to what it would have been without the intervention to 28% and 4% to 10% in Eastern Province Uganda: N/A Zambia: N/A |
Differential impacts on adoption for vulnerable subgroups | Nigeria: Women farmers made up a small share of farmers growing Aflasafe-treated maize and wives in male-headed households did not learnt as much about Aflasafe. Household cooks are less likely to know about Alfasafe than the household’s lead farmer Kenya: Female-headed households were 3.7% more likely to adopt than male-headed households Uganda: N/A Zambia: N/A |
Causal impact analysis: Did the PfR lead to improved farmer well-being? | |
Farmer well-being | Nigeria: Smallholder farmers increased their incomes and to some extent the intake of aflatoxin-free maize. Smallholders had 16% higher incomes (increase of $318 annually) from maize among smallholder farmers adopting Aflasafe; only 13% percentage point increase in daily maize intake of Aflasafe-treated maize (from zero) when expectation was complete shift to Aflasafe-treated maize;If the farmers had greater awareness of the health benefits of Aflasafe and/or the adverse health impact of aflatoxins, the uptake and impact could have been greater with potentially some tradeoff in increasing consumption and reducing the extent of sale Kenya: Farmers did not benefit financially from adopting improved on-farm storage. Evaluation found no impact on household food security or income from maize. Qualitatively, farmers reported using pesticide dust to mitigate against post-harvest losses. They shifted to the new technology citing preference for improved storage devices so they could stop using pesticide dust Uganda: N/A Zambia: N/A |
Differential impacts on well-being for vulnerable subgroups | Nigeria: Women were less likely to be knowledgeable about health consequences of aflatoxins. Since only about one fifth of the farmers themselves knew about the health benefits, it is not surprising that their wives, the cooks typically, did not learn about the health benefits Kenya: Lack of impacts of adoption on farmer income from maize precludes differential impacts Uganda: N/A Zambia: N/A |