Impact of modern agricultural technologies on smallholder welfare: Evidence from Tanzania and Ethiopia

Asfaw, S and Shiferaw, B and Simtowe, F and Lipper, L (2012) Impact of modern agricultural technologies on smallholder welfare: Evidence from Tanzania and Ethiopia. Food Policy, 37 (3). pp. 283-295. ISSN 0306-9192

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Abstract

This paper evaluates the potential impact of adoption of improved legume technologies on rural household welfare measured by consumption expenditure in rural Ethiopia and Tanzania. The study utilizes cross-sectional farm household level data collected in 2008 from a randomly selected sample of 1313 households (700 in Ethiopia and 613 in Tanzania). The causal impact of technology adoption is estimated by utilizing endogenous switching regression. This helps us estimate the true welfare effect of technology adoption by controlling for the role of selection problem on production and adoption decisions. Our analysis reveals that adoption of improved agricultural technologies has a significant positive impact consumption expenditure (in per adult equivalent terms) in rural Ethiopia and Tanzania. This confirms the potential role of technology adoption in improving rural household welfare as higher consumption expenditure from improved technologies translate into lower poverty, higher food security and greater ability to withstand risk. An analysis of the determinants of adoption highlighted inadequate local supply of seed, access to information and perception about the new cultivars as key constraints for technology adoption.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Household welfare; Technology adoption; Impact assessment; Endogenous switching; Sub-Saharan Africa; Ethiopia; Tanzania
Subjects:	Others > Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics
Depositing User:	Mr Siva Shankar
Date Deposited:	29 Mar 2012 10:53
Last Modified:	29 Mar 2012 10:53
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/5796
Official URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2012.02.013
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation(MBGF), ICRISAT
Acknowledgement:	We would like to thank the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation (MBGF) and ICRISAT for their financial support to this study. The authors are grateful to the Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center (DZARC) of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the Selian Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) in Tanzania for providing leadership in implementing household surveys. We also thank the anonymous referees and the journal editor for their comments and suggestions that substantially improved the paper quality.
Links:	Author

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