Consumer market segments for biofortified iron beans in Rwanda: Evidence from a hedonic testing study

An understanding of consumer market segments is important for efficient and effective targeting of new technologies, such as biofortified foods. In this paper, we use cluster analysis to identify distinct consumer segments in Rwanda for four biofortified iron bean varieties. Data on consumer liking of various sensory attributes of beans was collected by using a 7-point hedonic scale through the application of home-use and central location tests implemented in two rural and two urban locations. Cluster analysis reveals the existence of several distinct consumer segments in each one of the four study locations. Further analysis is conducted by using multinomial probit and logit models to predict consumer segment membership based on the consumer characteristics. Results reveal that, depending on the location, consumer’s source of income and whether or not they received information about nutritional benefits of the iron bean varieties have a bearing on their preference of these varieties. The paper presents a profile of each one of the consumer market segments identified to assist targeting of various iron bean delivery, marketing and promotion efforts in Rwanda.     

Impact of tissue culture banana technology on farm household income and food security in Kenya

While tissue culture (TC) technology for vegetative plant propagation is gradually gaining in importance in Africa, rigorous assessment of broader welfare effects for adopting smallholder farm households is lacking. Using survey data and accounting for selection bias in technology adoption, we analyze the impact of TC banana technology on household income and food security in Kenya. To assess food security outcomes, we employ the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) – a tool that has not been used for impact assessment before. Estimates of treatment-effects models show that TC banana adoption, combined with improved crop management, causes considerable increases in farm and household income. Technology adoption also reduces relative food insecurity in a significant way. These results indicate that TC technology can be welfare enhancing for adopting farm households. Adoption should be further promoted through upscaling appropriate technology delivery systems.     

Bargaining power,decision making,and biofortification: The role of gender in adoption of orange sweet potato in Uganda

We examine the role of gender dimensions of intrahousehold bargaining power and decision making in the adoption and diffusion of orange sweet potato (OSP), a biofortified crop being promoted to increase dietary intakes of vitamin A in Uganda. We use patterns of ownership and control of land and other assets by married men and women to create gender-disaggregated indicators of bargaining power, allowing for joint and sole ownership and control of land and assets. Using data from an experimental evaluation of a project promoting OSP adoption, we find that the probability of adopting OSP is not affected by the exclusive or joint control of assets by women at the household level. However, within households, parcels of land under joint control, in which the woman has primary control over decision making, are significantly more likely to contain OSP. Women who control a higher share of household nonland resources are more likely to share OPS vines, showing that women use greater bargaining power to facilitate diffusion of this health-promoting technology. We do not find any impact of women’s bargaining power on children’s dietary intakes of Vitamin A, possibly because husbands and wives have the same preferences regarding their children’s nutritional status. These results contribute to reshaping our understanding of household decision making to inform the design and implementation of agriculture-nutrition interventions.     

ICT-based market information and adoption of agricultural seed technologies: Insights from Uganda

Access to ICT-based market information is crucial to the adoption of agricultural seed technologies for maize, beans and groundnut and to improve smallholder farmer yields and income. This ICT-based market information is provided by FM radio stations and by market information centers through media such as mobile phones and internet facilities, etc. Factors that positively affect the probability of access to ICT-based market information include access to microfinance loans, membership in a farmer association, government awareness campaigns, and wealth. Distance to the trading centers or district capital negatively affects this access. The likelihood of access to ICT-based market information declines with female-headed households. Access to market information has a positive and significant impact on the intensity of adopting improved seed for all crops. Adoption of improved seed has a positive and significant effect on farm yields and gross farm returns. This research shows that in order to generate meaningful improvements in food security and farm incomes, there must be commensurate efforts to promote ICT-based market information along with yield-augmenting agricultural seed technologies.     

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

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.     

Is DNA fingerprinting the gold standard for estimation of adoption and impacts of improved lentil varieties?

In the early 1980s, disease susceptibility in short-season lentil landraces began to limit productivity in areas where relay cropping took place in Bangladesh. Since then, several improved high-yielding lentil varieties, which are resistant to rust and blight and suitable in the relay cropping system, have been released jointly by national and international research centers. This study used three methods, namely a panel of experts, a survey of 1000 households where the respondents named the variety they used, and DNA fingerprinting of seed samples collected from all lentil plots cultivated by survey households to estimate adoption. Double hurdle and instrumental variables regression methods were applied to the household survey and DNA fingerprinting data to identify determinants of adoption and measure their impacts. Of particular interest was whether estimates of adoption, determinants of adoption and impacts varied by method of variety identification. Results showed that the expert panel overestimated the adoption of more recent varieties while about 89% of the farmer-reported varieties were accurate, as verified by DNA fingerprinting. DNA fingerprinting appears to have little advantage for estimating the level of adoption in this case, where few varieties of lentils are found, local variety names do not exist, and most seed is obtained through a formal system. However, even under these conditions, determinants of adoption vary by identification method, and use of farmer-reported information on the variety can lead to erroneous conclusions about determinants of adoption. Because recent breeding efforts have focused on taste and cooking considerations, yield impacts were not significantly different from zero.     

Impact of off-farm income on food security and nutrition in Nigeria

While the poverty implications of off-farm income have been analyzed in different developing countries, much less is known about the impact of off-farm income on household food security and nutrition. Here, this research gap is addressed by using farm survey data from Nigeria. Econometric analyses are employed to examine the mechanisms through which off-farm income affects household calorie and micronutrient supply, dietary quality, and child anthropometry. We find that off-farm income has a positive net effect on food security and nutrition. The prevalence of child stunting, underweight, and wasting is lower in households with off-farm income than in households without. Using a structural model, we also show that off-farm income contributes to higher food production and farm income by easing capital constraints, thus improving household welfare in multiple ways.     

Was household internet adoption driven by the reform? Evaluation of the 2013 telecommunication reform in Mexico

In 2013 the Mexican Telecommunications and Broadcasting Reform was launched with the goal of promoting competition and access in the telecommunications sector. The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether the 2013 reform had an impact on household fixed internet adoption and to what extent Mexican households, classified into ten wealth groups, had adopted internet. For the assessment, after a revision of supply and demand Reform's measures to reduce the digital divide, data from the 2010 Census and 2015 Intercensal Survey were used to create adoption indexes using Poisson estimations. The results were analyzed by ten wealth groups, constructed on principal components based on household characteristics (type of dwelling, electricity availability, availability of drinking water, sewer system, internet and ICT devices: computer, telephone, cell phone and internet). Additionally, the impact of both indexes was validated by a difference in differences method. The results suggest a 66% overall increase in internet adoption between 2010 and 2015. The decile analysis showed considerable internet adoption in the low and middle wealth groups (deciles 2–8), while in the highest wealth groups (deciles 9–10) the impact of internet adoption has been relatively moderate. It is worth noting that internet adoption is unequally distributed, as less than 1% of households in deciles 1 to 6 had adopted internet in 2015, while nearly all of the wealthiest ten percent of households have internet access. Nevertheless the increment in internet adoption was not only the result of the reform but the combination of the broadband penetration trend and the reform together.     

Estimating willingness-to-pay for broadband attributes among low-income consumers: Results from two FCC lifeline pilot projects

Recent studies have confirmed that broadband adoption (as opposed to simply having access to broadband infrastructure) is positively linked with economic growth. In light of this, federal policy efforts have switched from focusing mainly on the provision of infrastructure to more explicit adoption-oriented efforts. One of those efforts was the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Low-income Broadband Lifeline Pilot Projects, which ran from 2013 to 2014. The program worked with 14 private telecommunications firms to subsidize household broadband adoption for low-income households by providing discounted monthly and equipment costs. Low-income households are an important component of the broadband adoption puzzle: between 2003 and 2013, the adoption gap between low-income and high-income households actually increased by 5% points. This paper focuses on two specific FCC Broadband Lifeline Pilot projects that allowed consumers to make choices among different options, such as data allowance, speed, and wireless vs. wired connections. Conditional logit models are used to develop estimates of consumer’s willingness-to-pay for specific broadband attributes. The results indicate that low-income consumers have a preference for smartphone connections (versus aircards) – and that this effect is even more pronounced for those households earning less than $20,000; that low-income consumers have a preference for wired connections (versus wireless); and that there is evidence that low-income consumers are willing to pay for an extra GB of data each month – but not for the speed of their connection.     

An evaluation of the Connected Nation broadband adoption program

Closing the digital divide and increasing broadband adoption within households and communities continues to be a target for government and nonprofit groups. While a large number of studies have examined policies and programs aimed at improving broadband infrastructure availability, little analysis to date has focused on evaluating efforts to increase adoption. One of the most well-known programs focused on adoption is Connected Nation, which partnered with 14 states to provide local curricula aimed at raising residential connection rates. This analysis uses a generalized difference-in-difference methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of the Connected Nation program in 5 states during 2012 and 2013. The results indicate that participation in the Connected Nation program had no significant impact on broadband adoption rates. This paper represents a rigorous evaluation of one of the most well-known adoption-oriented programs and emphasizes that measurable impacts of such efforts may not accrue over the short term.     

Consumer acceptance of provitamin A-biofortified maize in Maputo,Mozambique

Biofortified staple foods hold the potential to alleviate micronutrient malnutrition in many impoverished regions of the world. However, biofortification often alters the flavor, appearance, and other features of foods in ways that may limit consumer acceptance of the new varieties and diminish their impact. This research examined the acceptance of provitamin A-biofortified maize through taste tests and a trading experiment conducted in Maputo, Mozambique. On average, participants ranked the taste, texture, and appearance of their local white maize over an orange, biofortified variety and over a white variety with similar texture and flavor as the biofortified maize. Nonetheless, a large share of participants in a framed experiment accepted offers to trade local white maize meal for meal from the biofortified maize. Household size, the presence of small children, dietary diversity, and perceived taste were statistically significant determinants of acceptance. Results suggest that existing preferences for white maize do not preclude acceptance of orange, biofortified varieties and that provitamin A-biofortified maize may be a self-targeting nutritional intervention.     

Recent developments in modifying crops and agronomic practice to improve human health

Malnutrition of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) affects more than two billion people worldwide, especially in developing countries, largely due to low concentrations or poor bioavailability of these nutrients in the diet. In contrast, over-consumption, particularly of over-refined cereal-based foods, has contributed to the development of an “epidemic” of metabolic diseases in some developed countries. This review highlights recent progress in modifying crops and agronomic practice to increase health benefits. Mineral concentrations or bioavailability in crop edible parts can be increased by fertilisation, breeding or biotechnology. It is also possible to modify crops using transgenic technology to enable or increase the biosynthesis of vitamins and long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, or to modify the composition of starch or dietary fibre. Although technologically feasible now or in the near future, the development of micronutrient biofortified or composition-modified crops would also depend on other factors such as consumer acceptance, cost, regulations and national or international intervention.     

The impact of cooperatives on agricultural technology adoption: Empirical evidence from Ethiopia

Using cross-sectional data and a propensity score matching technique, this paper investigates the impact of cooperatives on adoption of agricultural technologies. Our analysis indicates that cooperative members are more likely to be male-headed households, have better access to agricultural extension services, possess oxen, participate in off-farm work, and have leadership experience. We also found that geographic location and age of household head are strongly associated with cooperative membership. Our estimation results show that cooperative membership has a strong positive impact on fertilizer adoption. The impact on adoption of pesticides turns out to be statistically significant when only agricultural cooperatives are considered. Further analysis also suggests that cooperative membership has a heterogeneous impact on fertilizer adoption among its members. The results suggest that cooperatives can play an important role in accelerating the adoption of agricultural technologies by smallholder farmers in Ethiopia.     

The role of microcredit in older children’s nutrition: Quasi-experimental evidence from rural China

This article evaluates the causal impact of rural households’ borrowing, through formal microcredit, on child nutrition in poor northwest China. The analysis exploits the panel data in rural Gansu between 2000 and 2004. Unobserved differences between borrowers and non-borrowers are controlled for in a dynamic fuzzy regression-discontinuity design creating a quasi-experimental environment for causal inference. Both anthropometric and micronutrient measures of child nutrition are investigated. Borrowing formal microcredit improves parent-reported health status and weight, and alleviates anemia and zinc deficiency. All effects nevertheless appear to exist in the short-term only.     

Smallholder income and land distribution in Africa: implications for poverty reduction strategies

This paper provides a micro-level foundation for discussions of land allocation and its relation to income poverty within the smallholder sectors of Eastern and Southern Africa. Results are drawn from nationally-representative household surveys between 1990 and 2000 in five countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Zambia. The paper shows that farm sizes are declining over time; that roughly a quarter of the agricultural households in each country are virtually landless, controlling less than 0.10 hectares per capita, including rented land; that non-farm income shares are below 40% even for the households in the bottom land quartile; and that because of this, there is a strong relationship between access to land and household income, particularly for farm sizes below 1.0 hectares per capita. Land distribution within these small-farm sectors appears to be becoming more concentrated over time, and their Gini coefficients are comparable to those of many Asian countries at the time of their green revolutions. Lastly, the largest part of the variation in per capita farm sizes within the small-farm sectors is, in every country, predominantly within-village rather than between-village. Realistic discussions of poverty alleviation strategies in Africa need to be grounded in the context of these land distribution patterns and trends.     

Access to ICT in rural and urban Thailand

This paper addresses the information and communication technology adoption decisions of Thai households. The findings suggest that household composition, education, wealth, and occupation are key factors determining information and communication technology adoption. The rural–urban gap of mobile phone adoption was negligible in 2009 after controlling for household characteristics, while the gaps for other information and communication technologies have persisted. Having a family member migrate to work elsewhere significantly increases the likelihood of mobile phone adoption.     

Gendered impacts of the 2007–2008 food price crisis: Evidence using panel data from rural Ethiopia

This paper provides empirical evidence on the gendered impact of the 2007–2008 food price crisis using panel data on 1400 households from rural Ethiopia that were initially surveyed before the onset of the crisis, in 1994–1995, 1997, and 2004, and after food prices spiked, in 2009. It investigates whether female-headed households are more likely to report experiencing a food price shock, and whether female-headed households experiencing a shock are more (or less) likely to adopt certain coping strategies, controlling for individual, household, and community characteristics. Our findings suggest that female-headed households are more vulnerable to food price changes and are more likely to have experienced a food price shock in 2007–2008. Because female-headed households are also resource poor and have a larger food gap compared with male-headed households, they cope by cutting back on the number of meals they provide their households during good months and eating less preferred foods in general. A combination of short-term measures to protect diet diversity and micronutrient consumption of vulnerable groups and longer-term measures to promote investment in sustainable agriculture, such as strengthening women’s property rights, may increase the ability of poor and vulnerable households to cope better with food price increases.     

Can one laptop per child reduce digital inequalities? ICT household access patterns under Plan Ceibal

The study of information and communications technology (ICT) adoption signals that diffusion processes within highly unequal societies produce stratification in the access to digital technologies and thus, maintain or even increase previous socioeconomic disparities. While technological utopians believed that One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)-like programs could reduce societal inequalities, the economics literature evaluating these initiatives has mostly focused on student's human capital. Results suggest no impact, even for successful programs such as Uruguay's own OLPC-inspired Plan Ceibal. In this paper, we use an event-study approach to difference-indifferences to identify the impact of Plan Ceibal on the household adoption of technological goods across income quintiles. Our results show that Plan Ceibal helped to bridge domestic digital disparities in terms of access to PC and favored the uptake of internet services. We discuss the potential mechanisms behind these results. Regarding household PC access, even though Plan Ceibal was conceived as a universal program targeting primary-level students attending public schools, both infantilization of poverty and a dual-system educational stratification may explain why this initiative had a heterogenous impact across different income groups. Regarding household connectivity, Plan Ceibal reduced the cost of the bundle required to consume internet services at the time of the study, improving affordability and access among households with beneficiaries of the program.     

The effect of household wealth on the adoption of improved maize varieties in Zambia

Production and price risks that could render input use unprofitable sometimes prevent rural households from benefiting from input technological change. The household’s ability to cope with such risks and hence benefit from input technological change is often positively related to its wealth or stock of productive assets. Empirical evidence, however, suggests a non-linear relationship between wealth and adoption of new agricultural technologies so that within a rural community, households on the lower wealth continuum behave differently from those on the higher level. Using farm level data collected from 300 randomly selected households in three districts of Zambia in 2004/2005 crop season, this paper first stratifies households into poorly- and well-endowed households based on their access to productive assets and estimates separate double-hurdle models for the adoption of improved, high yielding maize (IHYM) varieties for each group. The results show that factors influencing the adoption and use intensity of IHYM varieties differ between the two groups. This draws attention to the need for recommending wealth group-specific interventions to increase the adoption and use intensity of such varieties and their subsequent impacts on food security and general livelihoods of the households. The explicit testing for the possibility that differences in household wealth affect the way in which other variables influence adoption decisions is the paper’s unique contribution to the adoption literature.