Resource saving and productivity enhancing impacts of crop management innovation packages in Ethiopia

Crop management innovations are often not discrete fixed stand‐alone options—and their adoption may imply various combinations and adaptations. This potentially confounds their impact assessment. This article assesses the resource saving and productivity enhancing impacts of a crop management package revolving around minimum tillage in maize‐based farming systems in northwest Ethiopia. An endogenous switching regression model was applied to plot‐ and household‐level survey data collected from 290 rural households operating 590 maize plots during the 2012 production year. Controlling for variations in plot and household characteristics, the average effect of minimum tillage package (minimum tillage package) on maize productivity is 0.44 t/ha. Compared to conventional practice (CP), adoption of the MTP decreased the average male and female labor use in maize production by 14.4 and 8.2 person‐days per ha, respectively. Similarly, MTP adoption decreased draft power use for land preparation by 13.2 pair of oxen‐days per ha. Compared to CP, in general, there is a considerable short‐run maize productivity gain and reduction in labor and draft power use under MTP.     

IMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM ETHIOPIA

Using household survey data from Ethiopia, this paper evaluates the impact of agricultural cooperatives on smallholders’ technical efficiency. We used propensity score matching to compare the average difference in technical efficiency between cooperative member farmers and similar independent farmers. The results show that agricultural cooperatives are effective in providing support services that significantly contribute to members’ technical efficiency. These results are found to be insensitive to hidden bias and consistent with the idea that agricultural cooperatives enhance members’ efficiency by easing access to productive inputs and facilitating extension linkages. According to the findings, increased participation in agricultural cooperatives should further enhance efficiency gains among smallholder farmers.     

Can smallholder farmers adapt to climate variability,and how effective are policy interventions? Agent‐based simulation results for Ethiopia

Climate variability with unexpected droughts and floods causes serious production losses and worsens food security, especially in Sub‐Saharan Africa. This study applies stochastic bioeconomic modeling to analyze smallholder adaptation to climate and price variability in Ethiopia. It uses the agent‐based simulation package Mathematical Programming‐based Multi‐Agent Systems (MPMAS) to capture nonseparable production and consumption decisions at household level, considering livestock and eucalyptus sales for consumption smoothing, as well as farmer responses to policy interventions. We find the promotion of new maize and wheat varieties to be an effective adaptation option, on average, especially when accompanied by policy interventions such as credit and fertilizer subsidy. We also find that the effectiveness of available adaptation options is quite different across the heterogeneous smallholder population in Ethiopia. This implies that policy assessments based on average farm households may mislead policy makers to adhere to interventions that are beneficial on average albeit ineffective in addressing the particular needs of poor and food insecure farmers.     

Spatial Equilibrium of Wheat Markets in Ethiopia

Abstract: Knowledge about the extent to which spatial markets are integrated is useful to assess the impact of liberalization policies on the performance of agricultural markets in the developing countries. In turn, this would help to guide subsequent interventions aimed at improving the performance of markets. Cointegration techniques provide an analytical framework to know whether markets are integrated, by making it possible to investigate the existence and magnitude of price transmission between spatial markets. This study tries to analyze the spatial equilibrium of wheat markets in Ethiopia by employing an autoregressive distributed‐lag modeling approach to cointegration analysis on wheat prices observed during the post‐liberalization period for the central wholesale market (Addis Ababa) and for a local market (Ambo). The major finding of a stable equilibrium relationship between the price series considered provides evidence of market integration. Since intervention in local markets is generally costly and less effective, the result suggests the possibility of targeting intervention at the central wholesale market level with the objective of influencing price dynamics in the local markets.     

AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES AND RURAL LIVELIHOODS: EVIDENCE FROM ETHIOPIA

ABSTRACT: Agricultural cooperatives are important rural organizations supporting livelihood development and poverty reduction. In recognition of such roles of cooperatives, Ethiopia showed a renewed interest in recent years in promoting cooperative sector development. However, there is lack of a wider and systematic analysis to produce sufficient empirical evidence on the livelihood development and poverty reduction impacts of cooperatives in the country. Using a matching technique on rural household income, saving, agricultural input expenditure and asset accumulation as indicator variables, this paper evaluates the livelihood impact of agricultural cooperatives in Sidama zone, Ethiopia. The finding shows that cooperatives improved the livelihoods of service user farmers through impacting better income, more savings and reduced input costs. In view of such evidence, further promotion, deepening and supporting of agricultural cooperatives is recommended.