Economics of Scaling Agricultural Research Recommendations to Up-Scale Adoption and Impact

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2019. Major: Applied Economics. Advisors: Terrance Hurley, Philip Pardey. 1 computer file (PDF); x, 159 pages.A fundamental challenge of agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is that technologies which prove successful at a small scale, in limited locations, and with few farmers, often fail to scale to encompass the preponderance of poor farmers. This study focuses on the economics of deploying technologies and recommendations that are then scaled beyond their initial targeted groups. The dissertation is composed of three essays. In the first essay, we address the stylized fact that experimental crop responses are typically higher than observational crop responses obtained in farmers’ fields. This is arguably a canonical example of a failure to scale from experimental plots. To close these crop response gaps—necessary goal assuming general constant long-term trends in maize output/fertilizer price ratios—, we propose that fertilizer recommendations be based on a Bayesian combination of experimental and observational crop response estimates. We use Bayesian econometric methods to combine estimates from experimental and observational evidence. In the second essay, we build on the first to determine the likelihood that farmers will adopt new varietal technologies. We modify the differentiated product demand models used in the industrial organization literature to the economics of hybrid maize varietal adoption in Malawi. By focusing on the characteristics space of maize varieties, our approach can help in ex-ante evaluation of the scaling-up potential of new crop varieties. The final essay calibrates inter-district food flows in Malawi thereby providing statistics for improving the targeting of national and regional food policies and technology commercialization strategies. We develop a food sector model for Malawi and use it to analyze the impacts of varying transport costs on food traded among districts within the country

An Inquiry into Research Methods Practices: Case Study of Center for Agricultural Research and Development in Malawi

The main objective of the project was to analyze the research methods practices and the research working environment at Center for Agricultural Research and Development (CARD) through inquiry based case studies so as to ascertain ways of improving research management and the quality of research outputs The specific objectives were; to determine research methods issues in working with the research community at CARD; to evaluate the data management and analysis practices at CARD; to improve the capacity in economic data analysis through a training course at CARD; and to determine the processes for the reviewing of research reports, protocols and proposals developed at CARD. The project was accomplished through documentation of evidence of interactive experience on six tasks that were accomplished during the attachment period at the center. The project tasks were; participation in research (consultancy skills), contributions to team planning and review meetings, contribution to data management, analyzing research data, offering a training course and writing a review on research documents

Mancala board games and origins of entrepreneurship in Africa.

This study examines the correlational relationship between the historical playing of indigenous strategic board games (also called mancala) and the socio-economic complexity of African ethnic groups as well as the incidence of entrepreneurial pursuits. Anthropology literature suggests that these games may be associated with socio-economic complexity of the ethnic groups-the so-called games in culture hypothesis. I revisit this hypothesis with better data and motivated by anecdotal evidence, introduce a contemporary hypothesis, origins of entrepreneurship hypothesis-that descendants of societies that played complex mancala games are more likely to be engaged in non-farm self-employment today. I compile the first comprehensive database of mancala games in Africa matched to ancestral characteristics data, and for 18 African countries, to the Afrobarometer survey data. Using historical and contemporary data, I do not find evidence for either hypothesis. Despite the null results, I explore how related hypotheses and studies can build on the comprehensive mancala database

Graphical analysis of agricultural research spillover potential

This paper introduces two important extensions to the uncentered correlation metric, the commonly used metric proposed by Jaffe (1986) for analyzing research spillovers across firms or countries. First, it is shown that the Jaffe metric can be displayed graphically using the biplot, a graphical display of a two-dimensional approximation to any multidimensional matrix. Second, it is illustrated that since the data used to produce the Jaffe metric is constrained within the simplex (i.e. shares add up to one), then a theoretically superior metric satisfying the basic axioms of technological proximity measures in this sample space is the Aitchison distance measure, a metric based on log-ratios of shares. The findings of the paper using agricultural research and development spillover potential for Southern African countries show that the Jaffe metric overestimates the technological proximity across countries as compared to the proposed Aitchison measure

Closing the Gaps in Experimental-Observational Crop Responses Estimates: Bayesian Approach

A stylized fact of African agriculture is that experimentally derived crop responses to inorganic fertilizer application are substantially greater than those from observational studies e.g., farm surveys and administrative data. The continuing divergence between experimental and observational crop responses reported in the literature coupled with the recent debates on the costs and benefits of the re-surging farm input subsidy programs in Africa have ignited the old problem of reconciling these estimates. This paper argues that progress on closing the gaps has been impeded by the focus on the mean crop response differences while ignoring the enormous uncertainty and heterogeneity. I show in this paper that a convenient way of dealing with different crop response function estimates is to use a Bayesian approach to get combined estimates that are weighted by the uncertainty in each data source and can be adjusted for unobserved heterogeneity using a Bayesian hierarchical model. The plausible assumption that makes this approach optimal is that the experimental process overestimates the “true” crop response while observational methods overestimate failures. Using nationally representative experimental, survey, and administrative datasets from Malawi, I find that even after combining the estimates; crop responses are low, heterogenous across space and that ignoring the parameter uncertainty and heterogeneity in crop responses inevitably results in wrong policy prescriptions

Whither Broad or Spatially Specific Fertilizer Recommendations?

Are spatially specific agricultural input use recommendations more profitable to smallholder farmers than broad recommendations? This paper provides a theoretical and empirical modeling procedure for determining the optimal spatial scale at which agricultural researchers can make soil fertility recommendations. Theoretically, the use of Bayesian decision theory in the spatial economic optimization model allows the complete characterization of the posterior distribution functions of profits thereby taking into account spatial heterogeneity and uncertainty in the decision making process. By applying first order spatial scale stochastic dominance and Jensen’s inequality; theoretically and empirically, this paper makes the case that spatially specific agricultural input use recommendations will always stochastically dominate broad recommendations for all non-decreasing profit functions ignoring the quasi-fixed cost differentials in the decision itself. These findings are consistent with many economic studies that find precision agriculture technologies to be more profitable than conventional fertilizer (regional or national recommendations based) application approaches. The modeling approach used in this study however provides an elegant theoretical justification for such results. In addition, seasonal heterogeneity in maize responses was evident in our results. This demonstrates that broad recommendations may not only be wrong spatially but also seasonally. Further research on the empirical aspects of spatio-temporal instability of crop responses to fertilizer application using multi-location and multi-season data is needed to fully address the question posed initially. The decision making theory developed here can however be extended to incorporate spatio-temporal heterogeneity and alternative risk preferences

Role of Responsible Governance in Enhancing Integrated Goat Keeping and Cropping Systems in Southern Malawi: Trade-offs and Synergies towards Agroecological Transitions and Transformation

This brief reflects on the cases of two villages in Lingoni section, Domasi EPA in Machinga district, combined with literature review and key informant interviews, to highlight the significant contribution of village-level responsible governance in enhancing agroecological intensification amongst small holders. The study reveals that through using village by-laws as tools, successful control of free grazing of livestock and uncontrolled fires has been prevented for many years, allowing local cropping systems to embrace long season crops such as cassava and pigeon peas, and winter cropping including multiple cropping with irrigation. The full range of resulting agroecological benefits are presented and discussed including the trade-offs from all sides of the systems

sj-docx-1-oag-10.1177_00307270241247326 - Supplemental material for Good fences make good neighbors? Exploring potential transformative impacts of local governance towards livestock fence-in rights in Malawi

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-oag-10.1177_00307270241247326 for Good fences make good neighbors? Exploring potential transformative impacts of local governance towards livestock fence-in rights in Malawi by Maxwell Mkondiwa, Vernon Kabambe and Amos Ngwira in Outlook on Agriculture</p