ACIAR Project annual reportaciar.gov.au/.../fsc-2012-024_semi_annual_report_june_nov_2013.pdf · Annual report project Identifying socioeconomic constraints to and incentives for

Annual report

project Identifying socioeconomic constraints to and incentives for faster technology adoption: Pathways to sustainable intensification in Eastern and Southern Africa (Adoption Pathways)

project number FSC/2012/024

period of report June 2013 – Nov 2013

date due 30 Nov 2013

date submitted 20 December, 2013

prepared by Menale Kassie

co-authors/ contributors/ collaborators

Gideon Obare, Julius Mangisoni, Chilot Yirga, Fulgence Mishili, Emilio Tostao, John Asafu-Adjaye, Ruth-Meinzen-Dick, Stein Holden, Paswel Mareyna

approved by

Annual report: Identifying socioeconomic constraints to and incentives for faster technology adoption: Pathways to sustainable intensification in Eastern and Southern Africa (Adoption Pathways)

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Contents

1 Progress summary ................................................................................... 3

2 Achievements ........................................................................................... 3

2.1 Achievements against project activities and outputs/milestones ......................................... 9

2.2 Project contribution to the Australian Aid Program ............................................................13

3 Impacts .................................................................................................... 14

3.1 Scientific impacts ...............................................................................................................14

3.2 Capacity impacts ................................................................................................................14

3.3 Community impacts ...........................................................................................................14

3.4 Communication and dissemination activities .....................................................................15

4 Training activities ......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

5 Intellectual property ............................................................................... 16

6 Variations to future activities ................................................................. 17

7 Variations to personnel .......................................................................... 18

8 Problems and opportunities .................................................................. 19

9 Budget ..................................................................................................... 20


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1 Progress summary In the reporting period, four major activities were carried out: gender-disaggregated household and individual level data collection including gender-disaggregated risk and time preferences experiments, capacity building, field visits and producing policy relevant papers on the link between sustainable intensification practices (SIPs) and risk exposure and cross-country impacts of SIPs on crop income and input use and gender food security gap.

One of the main activities of the project is to build a panel gender disaggregated comprehensive household-and plot level database to understand gender specific incentives and barriers to agricultural technologies (e.g., conservation agriculture) adoption and to understand the livelihood impacts of these technologies both at household and village level. To achieve these objectives, a comprehensive and gender disaggregated survey instrument was designed and implemented both at household (both spouses interviewed together) and individual (spouses interviewed separately) level. All countries’ surveys completed. A total of 5069 individuals (2469 men and 2600 women) were interviewed. In the next step a number of analyses including assessing difference in the distribution of assets and decision makings between males and females will be tested. A rigorous technology adoption dynamics and impact analysis will be carried out and results will be communicated with policy makers. Policy briefs and results from this analysis will be presented during the upcoming project annual meeting. In addition, gender-disaggregated risk and time preference and input demand experimental data collection completed in Ethiopia and Kenya in order to assess the role of men and women risk preferences in technology choice. This is carried out on a sub-sample of the Ethiopian and Kenyan total sample because social experiment survey is expensive. About 297 men and 306 women in Ethiopia and 317 men and 350 women in Kenya interviewed. Similar exercise is being carried out in Tanzania using fund available from IFPRI. Risk data analysis in Ethiopia started and results will be presented during the annual meeting. As a part of capacity building, partners from Tanzania and Malawi and University of Queensland (QQ) attended the African Agricultural Economics Association conference in Tunis and the 20th Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economics in France, respectively. The full cost for Tanzania and Malawi partners was fully covered by the ACIAR. The UQ partners apart from presenting a paper at the conference, made a presentation at the OECD in Paris where they discussed the AP project in the broader context. This gave opportunity to showcase Pathways activities in a broader context. In addition, the project has involved about 18 emerging economists (Msc) from partner institutions in various activities including survey implementation and coordination which in many ways has contributed to their research skills and professional growth. There were120 enumerators and supervisors who were trained in survey data collection and supervision. The project thus created employment opportunities for dozens of (mostly) young men and women for three months on average. The AP project partners in Ethiopia and Kenya hosted the Australian International Food Security Research Centre (AIFSRC) director, Mellissa Wood and, the AIFSRC Biosecurity and Food Safety manager Dennis Bittisnich and the ACIAR Chief Financial Controller (CFO), Albert Blair on a tour in the rural villages of Ethiopia and Kenya where project surveys were being undertaken and where the sister project SIMLESA1 has been demonstrating various technologies for farmers. Technical papers on causes of gender food security gap, impacts of sustainable intensification practices (SIPs) on risk exposure and cost of risk and crop income were produced. Closing the gender food security gap requires reducing/eliminating discrimination against female farmers. Adoption of SIPs reduces downside risk and cost of risk in Malawi. Similarly, SIPs were shown to significantly increase crop income and reduce application of agro-chemicals (Nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides) in Malawi and Ethiopia. These results showed that in addition to improving welfare of farm households, SIPs can contribute to improving/maintaining eco-

1 SIMLESA is the Sustainable intensification of maize-legume cropping systems for food security in eastern

and southern Africa project. It is funded by ACIAR.

http://aciar.gov.au/aifsc/


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system services through reducing agro-chemical use. From these empirical results, a policy brief on input subsidies and improved maize varieties in Malawi were produced by Julius Mangisoni and Stein Holden. About variation to personnel, CIMMYT hired a scientist (Dr. Paswel Marenya) who will work 50% on Adoption Pathways project and 50% on SIMLESA. Egerton University also brought on board Dr. Isaac Maina as an Egerton University collaborator. We believe this is helpful in the effective implementation of project activities. This report gives a summary of achievements by country/partners and thereafter a detailed table on achievements against outputs.

Ethiopia The country has completed both the household and individual level and social experiment surveys. About 24 enumerators, supervisors and survey coordinators and facilitators from partners’ institutions were trained by researchers from CIMMYT and Ethiopia Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) to administer individual and household level questionnaires. Data collection was designed to target both spouses in a household using a similar questionnaire (individual) while one household level questionnaire was targeted to interview both spouses together. The Training of 9 enumerators and supervisors for risk and time preference was carried out by Prof Stein Holden. Household and individual level data collected using computer assisted data collection method and a software called Census and Survey Processing System (CSPro). A total of 1661 individuals (786 men and 875 women) were interviewed. The level of household attrition was very small (12 households, compared with the SIMLESA baseline survey.

The risk and time preferences and input demand experiment was carried out on a sub-sample of households since such survey is very expensive. The total households interviewed in social experiment were about 328 while the individuals were 603 (297 Men and 306 women). Out of the 328 households that were interviewed, 24 were female headed households. Data cleaning started and data analysis and results will be presented during the annual meeting.

In addition to the above activities, the the Adoption Pathways project team hosted in early July 2013, the Australian International Food Security Centre (AIFSC) director, Mellissa Wood and, the AIFSC Biosecurity and Food Safety manager Dennis Bittisnich on a tour in the areas the project is carrying out surveys with farmers in rural villages of nine districts in Ethiopia. They visited survey farmers and on-station and on-farm conservation agriculture trials (see photo below) demonstrated by SIMLESA program and interacted with researchers of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and farmers who are early conservation agriculture adopters. The farmer hosting the trial preferred the maize intercropped with beans. “From the top, I get maize and from the bottom, I get beans,” he said explaining his preference as he got income from both crops which had higher yields compared to what he got when he practiced mono-cropping. Mellissa Wood lauded the researchers for the work done on the on-station trials and on-farm in collaboration with farmers. She reiterated the importance of the Adoption Pathways work highlighting AIFSC’s focus on adoption and

http://aciar.gov.au/aifsc/


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scale out of technologies. “In Australia, conservation agriculture is very important as we have a lot of drought and changing rainfall patterns, and CA makes us more productive,” said Wood.

Mellissa taking notes when a farmer is explaining CA benefits Mellissa presenting Pen and bag with the ACIAR logo

Kenya

In the Adoption Pathways project, gender is an integral component in order to understand its role in agricultural development including technology adoption, agricultural productivity and food security through establishment of long-term gender disaggregated data. In this regard, gender disaggregated household and individual survey instruments have been developed in collaboration with all partners. About 30 enumerators, supervisors and survey coordinators from the the partnering university in Kenya were trained to collected information on sample households and individuals. Through the household and individual survey effort, the project team in Kenya managed to collect data from 864 individuals out of the expected 1107 (based on the SIMLESA baseline survey sample size and the total number of households of 613), reflecting an attrition rate of 21%. From the 613 households 547 were interviewed. The attrition rate was thus about 11%. The fact that the 100% response rate was not achieved is attributable to, among others:

1. A spouse working in distant places and therefore, was unavailable for interview;

2. Some families in the original sample had out-migrated from the village(s);

3. A few of respondents from the original SIMLESA database had passed on; and.

4. Some households were headed by widows or widowers.

Risk and time preferences experimental protocols disaggregated by gender were developed by IFPRI based on the Ethiopian risk and time preferences protocol. The survey was financed by IFPRI to a tune of USD 36,000. The implementation of the survey in Kenya involved 667 individuals, consisting of 350 females and 317 males. The expected sample size was 800 on the assumption that each household had both spouses. The attrition rate in this case was about 17%. The reasons as to why the target of 800 respondents was not achieved are similar to those of the household and individual surveys in Kenya.

Data entry and cleaning is going on for both surveys and it is expected that the data would be available for analyses sometime in January2014.

Melissa Wood, Director, Australian International Food Security Research Centre and the Chief Financial Controller (CFO), Albert Blair had a field trip to SIMLESA/Adoption Pathways study sites on the 5th December, 2013. They had arrived in Embu the previous day and were hosted by KARI Embu. During the visit, the two had an opportunity of seeing first hand, the types of SIMLESA technologies being disseminated and the level of adoption in situ. They also attended a field day in one of the study sites in Meru, where the various technologies were in exhibition, all being done by the farmers themselves. Participating in the field day were private stakeholders who were exhibiting complimentary packages to SIMLESA technologies. The impressions from the field trip were captured in select photos as seen below.


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Mellissa listening a female farmer explaining the technology she adopted A jig with happy farmers

Malawi

In the reporting period, the major activity carried out in Malawi was field survey for the project involving implementation of both individual and household questionnaires. The field survey started on June 12 2013 and ended on August 12, 2013. For this purpose twenty four personnel were trained. A total of 732 questionnaires were administered against an expected number of 892 households. The main reasons for the shortfall were (i) movement of households to other districts; (ii) death of both husband and wife; (iii) inability to trace some households and (iv) continuous unavailability of some households during the survey period. For the individual questionnaires, a total of 668 females and 525 males were interviewed. A follow-up survey is ongoing to interview some of the missed households.

The major challenges during the survey period were:1) limited financial resources for the survey; 2) it was not easy to find both husband and wife in one place as household members engage in various activities to enhance the livelihood of their families. This led to loss of time and thus put considerable pressure on the budget or available financial resources; 3) concurrent interviews of household head and spouse (gender disaggregation) were deemed boring and tiring to the households because the interviews were done after the respondents had already responded to the household questionnaire. Major observations made at field level include wide divergences in responses of husbands and wives; flexibility and honesty. For instance most husbands had more information on household savings than wives. In addition, husbands often reported that the household was food secure while the wife would state the opposite. Household heads (males) were mostly up-to-date about assets (number and value) compared to wives. On flexibility and honesty, the common observation was that when administering the household questionnaire, most wives were not free to contribute effectively but only endorsed the husband’s responses. The wives were as hypothesized free to respond to sensitive questions on decision making and control when interviewed separately on issues dealing with household savings.

Data entered and cleaning is on-progress to write survey reports.


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Participation of young economists has been encouraged in the project to contribute to capacity building in the country. There are no variations to future activities or to personnel.

Tanzania Like any other country, the Tanzania team major activity during the reporting period was implementing household and individual survey with support from CIMMYT staff. The survey involved about 24 enumerators and supervisors and 4 survey coordinators from the university and national agricultural research institutes. The survey completed recently and interviewed 564 households of the total 701 expected households. The attrition rate (20%) in Tanzania is high which requires revisiting some of the households. The team is currently running a social experiment survey using the resources obtained through collaboration with IFPRI.

Mozambique Mozambique team completed the household and individual survey last week using about 16 enumerators. The challenge in Mozambique is that one district was dropped from the survey arising from security and political considerations unique to this district. This reduced the sample households from 510 to 378.

Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) The major activity for UMB was following up and finalizing the gender-disaggregated risk and time preferences and input demand experimental data collection in Ethiopia. The data is entered, cleaned and analysis started.

University of Queensland (UQ) Following the first annual planning meeting which was held at Chimoio, Mozambique, from 21-22 March 2013,

the UQ team has continued to work with our partners on various project-related activities. The activities of the

UQ team in this reporting period include the following:

(i) Thilak Mallawaarachchi participated in workshops/conferences that gave us an opportunity to showcase

our ongoing work in the context of modelling agricultural risk and adaptation under increasing uncertainty.

The first event was the 20th Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and

Resource Economics held in Toulouse, France, from 26-29 June 2013. Apart from presenting a paper, he

also chaired a session devoted to risk management in relation to climate change adaptation where the

two other papers were both concerned with Ethiopia. On 5 July, 2013, he also made a presentation at the

OECD in Paris where he discussed the AP project in the broader context.

The second event was organizing a workshop on ”Farm size dynamics in East and Southern Africa:

implications for research priority setting” in collaboration with the Amhara Region Agricultural Research

Institute(ARARI). This provided the UQ team an opportunity to showcase Pathways and SIMLESA

activities in a broader context and highlight the importance of taking a whole of system approach to

agricultural development. Insights drawn in this project that was implemented by ABARES and Amhara

Region Agricultural Research Institute, has provided a useful basis to model farm typologies in the

pathways project. Thilak Mallawaarachchi led this work from ABARES in his capacity as an ABARES

member at the time. The grant for this workshop was obtained from the ACIAR-AusAID Africa

partnership.

(ii) Also in this period, in collaboration with Stein Holden and Menale Kassie, we developed and submitted a

proposal to hold a thematic session entitled ‘Advances in modeling farm household adaptation to climate

risks’ at the World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economist to be held in Istanbul, Turkey,

from June 28-July 2, 2014. The three papers to be presented at this session will be based on our AP

work.


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International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

During this period of reporting, as a collaborating institution, IFPRI secured complementary funding from the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) to conduct gender-disaggregated risk and time preference experimental data in Kenya and Tanzania based on the experimental protocol developed for Ethiopia risk and time preferences and input demand experiment.

For capacity building (Objective 4), IFPRI provided training for survey teams in Kenya and Tanzania; data collection is ongoing in both countries.

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center(CIMMYT) In addition to playing a role in the overall coordination of the project, CIMMYT substantially assisted partners in implementing and supervising the surveys. CIMMYT trained survey teams including partners on survey instruments, implementation of surveys, and also provide backstopping in supervision of survey team. Half a page draft data sharing policy shared with partners for their comments. Furthermore, the following policy relevant publications produced and related policy briefs are being produced to share with policy makers and other stakeholders based on these and other papers produced during the previous reporting periods (see attached files).

Kassie, M, Simon, W., and Jesper, S. (2014) What determines gender inequality in Household Food security in Kenya? Application of exogenous switching regression. World Development, 56: 153-171.

Kassie, M., and Teklewold, H. (2013). Crop income and input use under alternative sustainable intensification choices: Empirical evidence from Ethiopia and Malawi. Submitted to Global Environmental change.

Kassie, M. Teklewold, H., and Marenya, P. (2013) Exposure and sensitivity of Malawi smallholders to production risks under alternative technology choices: Application of multinomial endogenous switching treatment regression. First draft completed.

Kassie, M., Jaleta, M., and Alessandra Mattei (2013) Evaluating the Impact of Improved Maize

varieties on Food Security in Rural Tanzania: A Continuous Treatment Approach. Revised version submitted to Food Security.


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Achievements

1.1 Achievements against project activities and outputs/milestones

With all the participation of national and international partners major milestones expected to be accomplished during the reporting period are completed. Below are detailed achievements by objective.

Objective 1: To enhance the technology adoption process by generating knowledge and panel data on how markets, assets, institutions, gender relations, risk and time preferences and technology policies constrain or facilitate adoption

Activity No.

Activity Outputs/milestones Note: Green, amber and red colours show (respectively) milestone fully completed,

partially completed (>50%) and milestone not started at all or

not completed (<50%)

Due date Comments

Activity 1.1.3.

Conduct longitudinal surveys at the village, household, individual (gender disaggregated) and plot level in five SIMLESA countries in two additional rounds

Enumerators and supervisors selected and trained incl. for risk and time preference data collection and Survey instrument pretested

Longitudinal data at households, individuals, plots, and villages (including risk and time preference data) collected

August 2013

Oct 2013

Activity 1.1.4

Develop experimental methodology to elicit risk and time preferences that may shape technology use decisions.

Experimental protocol and data for Ethiopia and Kenya

Experimental protocol and data for Tanzania

Oct 2013

Dec 2013

Social experiment data shared with partners

The Tanzania social experiment was not planned in the AP project but since we received additional funds from IFPRI we decided to cover more countries including Tanzania.


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Activity No.

Activity Outputs/milestones Note: Green, amber and red colours show (respectively) milestone fully completed,

partially completed (>50%) and milestone not started at all or

not completed (<50%)

Due date Comments

Activity 1.1.6

Complete data entry/cleaning (including risk and time preference data) and develop a comprehensive database using appropriate software and database management tools, and make it accessible to partners and users

Data entry personnel trained on CSpro data entry software and data entered-Kenya, Malawi, and Ethiopia

Data entry personnel trained on CSpro data entry software and data entered-Tanzania and Mozambique a

Nov 2013

(data entry and collection will be carried out concurrently)

Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania data entered. Tanzania and Mozambique data entry is expected to be completed in Jan 2014

Activity

1.2.1

Analyse survey data to generate descriptive statistics and describe role of gender in adoption of agricultural technologies.

Research report produced for each country and shared with stakeholders

March 2014 The analysis is expected to start once the cleaned data is ready (January 2014)

Activity 1.3.1

Econometric analysis on the influence of factors on multiple technology adoption using panel data

One working paper documenting the impact of these variables on multiple technology adoption using cross sectional data completed

Feb 2014-Kenya & Mozambique & Tanzania April 2014-Malawi June 2014-Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, Malawi and Kenya data is entered and data cleaning is in-progress for the preparation of the report. The papers will be submitted as scheduled.

Objective 2: To advance the understanding of how farmers’ livelihood strategies and SAI investments interact and influence vulnerability and farm household adaptation to climate variability and change.

Activity No.

Activity Outputs/Milestones

Note: Green, amber and red colours show (respectively)

milestone fully completed, partially completed (>50%) and milestone not started at all or not completed

(<50%)

Due date Comments

Activity 2.1.2

Analyze SIMLESA & other survey data to identify farmers’ ex-ante and ex-post risk coping strategies to manage climate risk

A working paper on farmers’ ex-ante and ex-post risk coping strategies to manage climate risk

May 2014-in all countries

These activities are led by UQ. The papers will be submitted as scheduled

Activity 2.1.3

Econometric analysis of factors influencing livelihood strategies of rural men and women using cross sectional and panel data

A working paper on the determinants of major livelihood strategies of rural women and men completed

June 2014-Ethiopia and Malawi

Activity 2.3.1

Identify potential adaptation options for further assessment using coping strategies and the dynamic risk model

Initial adaptation options identified and incorporated into the dynamic risk model

June 2014 The paper will be submitted as scheduled in April 2014


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Objective 3: Generate evidence on the socioeconomic impacts of adoption of multiple and complementary SAI technologies on different groups of farm households using econometric and household/village economy models

Activity No.


Note: Green, amber and red colours shows milestone fully completed, partially completed (>50%) and

milestone not started at all or not completed (<50%)

Due date Comments

Output 3.3. Resource use dynamics and intensification pathways determined using farm household models.

Activity

3.3.1

Develop flexible farm household models (static/dynamic, bio-economic) based on farm typologies

Farm household models developed, and analysis completed

June 2014-Malawi

Malawi farm household model developed and developing Ethiopia household model will start soon.

Activity

3.3.2

Conduct policy simulations to evaluate alternative policy options enhancing wider adoption and impact of technologies

Two working papers summarizing the results of the simulations completed (one for Ethiopia and one for Malawi)

May 2014

One working paper on impacts of design and access to input subsidies and land constraints on demand for improved maize varieties and effects of access to improved maize varieties on household welfare produced in Malawi

Output 3.4 Rural farm-nonfarm and the local price and wage/employment related effects of technology assessed using village economy-wide models for Malawi and Ethiopia

Activity

3.4.1

Develop social accounting matrices (SAMs) and estimate key parameters for the model

SAM constructed for representative villages in Malawi

June 2014 Malawi SAM developed and Ethiopia SAM construction is under discussion since there are no policy or technology breakthrough that will have wider and spill over impact

Activity

3.4.2

Develop micro economy-wide models and calibrate to SAM

Model specified and calibrated to SAM in GAMS

June 2014 Calibration of Malawi SAM is started


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Objective 4: To enhance the capacity for gender-sensitive agricultural technology policy research and communication of policy recommendations to facilitate adoption of maize system innovations

Activity No.


Note: Green, amber and red colours shows milestone fully completed, partially completed (>50%) and milestone not started at all or not completed (<50%)

Due date Comments

Activity

4.2.1 +

4.2.2

Conduct practical training

on cross-sectional and

panel data analysis and

methodologies and tools for

modelling and analysis of

dynamic adoption decisions

and impacts

A Training workshop for national partners on adoption decision analysis and impact assessment methods completed

March 2014

Part of the training is given during the risk analysis training. The remaining part is planned to be conducted back-to-back with the annual meeting, April 2014

Activity 4.3.2

Develop and share policy recommendations (based on objectives 1-3 outputs) for enhancing farmer technology adoption

1 peer reviewed paper

1 Policy briefs produced both in English and in local languages to share key lessons and experiences from results across countries

May 2014 Will be ready for the up-coming annual meeting

Activity

4.3.5

Attend policy workshops to share and discuss findings with stakeholders to facilitate use of new evidence and approaches for technology targeting, adoption in Eastern and Southern Africa.

Annual review and planning meeting organized along with SIMLESA regional meetings in Mozambique

March 2014 Planned for April 2014 along with SIMLESA meeting in Ethiopia

Activity 4.3.7

Establish participatory low-cost M&E system through discussion with the project partners and staff

Functioning common M&E system established based on SIMLESA project experience

December 2013 We are planning to combine this excrcise with annual meeting to save travel costs and time


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1.2 Project contribution to the Australian Aid Program

Though the project is expected to help increasing agricultural production through accelerated technology adoption and contribute to empowering women, such impacts are not expected now as the project is in its starting phase.

As a result of your project in the reporting period:

1. Estimate approximately how many people gained access to and used improved agricultural technologies from your project?

Yet to be determined in the next reporting period

2. Estimate what percentage were women?


3. Estimate the additional agricultural production in USD?


4. What are the sources of your estimates?

The source of estimates in this project will be repeated gender disaggregated data collection from the population which was targeted by SIMLESA program. The data will enable the project to estimate various parameters to see the impact of technology adoption over time in targeted population.

5. During the project's activities, do you expect to contribute to the results outlined above? Please comment.

Yes. In the coming years the project is expected to influence the adoption behaviours of farmers through better understanding of incentives and constraints to technology adoption and increasing the functionality and effectiveness of food security projects/programs such as SIMLESA. The repeated gender disaggregated data collection and communication of outputs with policy makers will enable us to measure the above parameters. The information that will be generated will be available to all stakeholders who will in turn use it to transform agricultural policy and investment priorities. The study will be able to ascertain the determinants of technology adoption decisions according to gender. The same will inform effective strategies that would be put in place to better improve agricultural productivity.


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2 Impacts The adoption Pathways project will help to generate various social, economic and environmental impacts through understanding socio-economics and biophysical factors and farming systems dynamics; helping policy makers and development practitioners in better technology packaging and dissemination, and helping women contribute strongly to food security by identifying gender sensitive technologies and understanding causes of gender food security and technology adoption gaps.

Achieving most of the impact outcome variables indicated in the project proposal will take several years.

2.1 Scientific impacts

Advanced practical methodological trainings offered to partners have increased capacity of project staff in research and teaching. The panel data will help in producing policy relevant publications that can assist policy makers and other stakeholders to better technology packaging and disseminating.

2.2 Capacity impacts

The training activities so far conducted have increased capacity of project staff in research as well as teaching. The project has involved 17 emerging economists (MSc level) from partner institutions in various activities which in many ways contribute to skills building and transfer. In addition, about 128 people benefited from training of data collection and data entry.

The training workshops have contributed to the improvement in the analytical capacities of the partners. The partners are aware and more likely to use the frontier analytical techniques and modelling strategies for analysing field survey data from both the AP and Gendered Time and Risk Preference (GT&RT) surveys.

2.3 Community impacts

The economic and risk analysis of technologies promoted by SIMLESA demonstrated that adoption of these technologies increased crop income and reduced agro-chemical use (excessive agrochemical use may be a risk among farmers practicing conservation tillage and relying on agro-chemicals for weed control, so this mitigating factor is important). The empirical results also showed that these technologies reduced downside risk. Reduction in agro-chemical use (Nitrogen fertilizer and pesticide) implies reduction in negative environmental impact (see attached documents including published papers from this project).

2.3.1 Economic impacts

Increase in crop income and reduction in downside risk due to adoption of technologies will contribute to wellbeing of rural farm households.

2.3.2 Social impacts

Reduction in agro-chemical application due to the adoption of sustainable intensification practices(SIPs) may have long-term positive health impact.


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2.3.3 Environmental impacts

Although we still need further analysis to assess the how adoption/the changed NRM affect the state of the natural resource base, reducing input application due to SIPs may improve water quality and reduce degradation of eco-system services (e.g. biological control of pests and disease and weeds, nutrient cycling). Definitely adoption of SIPs will contribute positively much on the environment.

2.4 Communication and dissemination activities

Our Malawi and UMB partners, using the work they did have developed a policy brief and submitted to both CIMMYT and to all departments of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in Malawi (Policy brief attached). The policy brief specifically revealed that although OPVs are less preferred than hybrids and local varieties, the OPVs performed better than the other varieties under drought conditions. Cash constraints prevented households from accessing preferred varieties. Thus integration of technologies such as pit planting and minimum tillage can enhance moisture conservation and fertilizer use efficiency as a way to reduce dependence on and cost of expensive imported fertilizers. The policy brief was well-received in the Ministry as a bridge between research and policy makers.

During CIMMYT board meeting field days in Kenya in Nov 2013 Adoption Pathways fliers were distributed to wider audience and poster presented on sustainable intensification impact on crop income and input use.

In addition, the following publications produced during the reporting period. Right now we are producing policy briefs based on these and other papers which will be distributed and discussed with stakeholders.

Kassie, M, Simon, W., and Jesper, S. (2014). What determines gender inequality in Household Food security in Kenya? Application of exogenous switching regression. World Development, 56: 153-171.

Kassie, M., and Teklewold, H. (2013). Crop income and input use under alternative sustainable intensification choices: Empirical evidence from Ethiopia and Malawi. Submitted to Global Environmental change.

Kassie, M., Teklewold, H., Mareyna, P. (2013) Exposure and sensitivity of Malawi smallholders to production risks under alternative technology choices: Application of multinomial endogenous switching treatment regression. First draft completed.

Kassie, M., Jaleta, M., and Alessandra Mattei (2013) Evaluating the Impact of Improved Maize

varieties on Food Security in Rural Tanzania: A Continuous Treatment Approach. Revised version submitted to Food Security.

Holden, S. T. and Lunduka, R. (2013). Input Subsidies, Cash Constraints and Timing of Input Supply. American Journal of Agricultural Economics (Forthcoming). DOI:10.1093/ajae/aat059.

Holden, S. T. and Julius Mangisoni (2013). Input subsidies and improved maize varieties in Malawi: - What can we learn from the impacts in a drought year? CLTS Working Paper No. 7/2013. Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway.

Holden, S. T. (2013). Input subsidies and demand for improved maize: Relative prices and household heterogeneity matter! CLTS Working Paper No. 6/2013. Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway.

Holden, S. T. (2013). Amazing maize in Malawi: Input subsidies, factor productivity and land use intensification. CLTS Working Paper No. 4/2013. Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway.

http://www.umb.no/statisk/clts/papers/CLTS_WP7_2013.pdf


http://www.umb.no/statisk/clts/papers/clts_wp06_2013.pdf

http://www.umb.no/statisk/clts/papers/clts_wp06_2013.pdf




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3 Intellectual property Not applicable


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4 Variations to future activities Activity 4.3.7 postponed to March 2014.


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5 Variations to personnel A new CIMMYT staff (Dr. Paswel Marenya) hired to work 50% on this project and 50% on SIMLESA program. In addition, Egerton University has brought also on board on personnel to collaborate with the project. The additional man power will assist in the effective implementation of the project. In Malawi the project has replaced Amon Kabuli and Mr Boaz Mandula, who is on PhD training. In their place the project is working with the following young vibrant researchers: Samson Katengeza, Sarah Tione and Kelvin Dambuleni. Maxwell Mkondiwa who was very useful to the project on research methodology and software training is now pursuing his PhD program in Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota, USA.


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6 Problems and opportunities The introduction of gender disaggregated survey approach is appropriate to understanding the role gender

plays in agricultural development including technology adoption, agricultural productivity and food security.

We believe this approach will help highlight key factors that need to be implemented in policies and

investments to achieve an equitable and inclusive agricultural development in this region. The logistical and

cost implications, however, is huge. This and unexpected increase in survey costs compared with the

SIMLESA baseline survey, blew the budget for the survey. This will have implication in the second round

surveys.


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7 Budget The budget will be sent in a separate report.

Documents

ACIAR Project annual reportaciar.gov.au/.../fsc-2012-024_semi_annual_report_june_nov_2013.pdf · Annual report project Identifying socioeconomic constraints to and incentives for