The impact of conservation agriculture adoption on farmer welfare: a comparative assessment of Kenya and Tanzania
Date
2021-05
Authors
Mpande, Brian
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Economic Research Consortium
Abstract
This paper used propensity score matching (PSM) technique and pooled cross-sectional data from
407 observations with 256 conservation agriculture (CA) adopters and 151 non-adopters from
Kenya and Tanzania, to test whether CA causally improves smallholder farmer’s welfare. We find
mixed results showing that CA has a statistically significant and positive impact on climate change
adaptation, drought resilience, total maize production, food security, number of meals per day,
household income, accumulation of productive assets, reduction of gender inequalities, improving
social cohesion, reduced forest area cleared and soil health improvement. CA has a negative and
statistically significant impact on total agricultural yield, agricultural production costs, and number
of food insecure months, CA has no impact on addressing agricultural calendar bottlenecks. Since
the cross-country analysis showed higher CA adoption rates in Tanzania relative to Kenya, policy
could increase adoption rates in the latter by focussing on the less educated farmers, increasing
access to input markets, demonstrating benefits from CA projects, and improving farmer mastery
of CA technologies. The findings shed light on the role of sustainable agricultural practices and
highlight cross-country experiences of CA technologies in improving the welfare of smallholder
farmers.
Description
Keywords
Conservation agriculture; propensity score matching; welfare; Kenya; Tanzania.