Estimating the Direct and Indirect Effects of Improved Seed Adoption on Yields : Evidence from DNA-Fingerprinting, Crop Cuts, And Self-Reporting in Ethiopia

Farmer adoption of improved crop varieties can potentially increase yields and enhance household welfare in the developing world. However, the presence of measurement error in household surveys poses a serious challenge to estimating true returns to adopting improved varieties. Using the 2018/19 Ethiopia Socio-economic Survey, we analyzed the impacts of three sources of measurement error caused by farmers’ misperceptions of seed varieties, land area, and quantities harvested on maize yields and input use. These data included DNA-fingerprinting of seed, GPS plot size information, and crop cuts that we compared to farmers’ self-reported measures. Results indicated that the measurement error in self-reported adoption of improved maize varieties attenuated yield gains by 12 percentage points on average. Furthermore, we found that improved seed genetics accounted for a 22 percentage point yield increase over traditional seed, and increased input use accounted for a 15 percentage point gain for improved varieties on average