Study title

Household-level panel survey (4 rounds) on 960 farmers in Siaya Kenya, including detailed information regarding all their crop activities (at the plot-level) for 4 agricultural seasons (short rain of 2014 (SR14), long and short rain of 2015 (LR15 and SR15) and long rain 2016 (LR16). Each dataset further contains household level information.This proposal aims to answer three research questions regarding small holder technology adoption of great interest to our partners and to the policy makers aiming for higher agricultural productivity in Africa. First is the heterogeneous and hidden quality of inputs a barrier to technology adoption? If so, this would lead to the recommendation of interventions that guide the farmers toward the right inputs, through regulations or through the diffusion of information. Second, do estimates regarding returns to new technologies coming from agricultural research in on-farm trials provide biased estimates for the response to inputs in real life conditions? If so, what are the most important sources of such bias, and how can trials be designed to avoid them? The study hence aims to reinforce the bridge between agronomic and development economics work. Third, does learning-by-doing and learning-from-others regarding new agricultural technologies differ depending on soils, skills and gender? And does this heterogeneity provide useful lessons for the design of more inclusive extension models and on the role of own experimentation in such models? To answer these questions we propose two Randomized Control Trials (RCT). The first "research trial RCT" will allow the farmers in the randomly selected villages to participate to the on-farm trials carried out by the agronomists of IITA in order to test inputs of different quality. Second, in the "technology dissemination RCT"; village based advisers will be trained in randomly selected villages to promote the best inputs identified in the research trials. For each RCT we will collect several...