Ayalew Hailemariam, Chamberlin Jordan, Newman Carol
Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford, UK.
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Nairobi, Kenya.
J Dev Econ. 2022 May;156:102788. doi: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102788.
Smallholder farmers in Africa typically only have access to blanket fertilizer recommendations which are defined over very broad areas and may not be optimal for local production conditions. The response to such recommendations has generally been poor. Using a randomized control trial in Ethiopia, we explore whether targeted extension advice leads farmers to align fertilizer usage to the recommended levels and whether this impacts productivity. We also consider whether coupling the targeted information with agricultural insurance encourages fertilizer investment. Results show that targeted recommendations closed the gap between the amount of fertilizer used and the recommended amounts and this in turn increased productivity and profits. We found no differential effect of the targeted recommendation when coupled with agricultural insurance, suggesting that the risk of crop failure is not a binding constraint to fertilizer adoption in this context, or that farmers do not consider agricultural insurance a useful risk-mitigating mechanism.
非洲的小农户通常只能获得适用于非常广阔区域的通用肥料建议，这些建议可能并不适合当地的生产条件。对这类建议的反馈通常较差。我们在埃塞俄比亚进行了一项随机对照试验，探讨有针对性的推广建议是否能引导农民使肥料使用量达到推荐水平，以及这是否会影响生产力。我们还考虑将有针对性的信息与农业保险相结合是否会鼓励肥料投资。结果表明，有针对性的建议缩小了肥料使用量与推荐量之间的差距，进而提高了生产力和利润。我们发现，将有针对性的建议与农业保险相结合并没有产生差异效应，这表明在这种情况下，作物歉收的风险并非采用肥料的决定性制约因素，或者农民并不认为农业保险是一种有用的风险缓解机制。
