Measuring Agricultural Knowledge and Adoption

Understanding the trade-offs in improving the precision of agricultural measures through survey design is crucial. Yet, standard indicators used to determine program effectiveness may be flawed and at a differential rate for men and women. The authors use a household survey from Mozambique to estimate the measurement error from male and female self-reports of their adoption and knowledge of three practices: intercropping, mulching, and strip tillage. Despite clear differences in human and physical capital, there are no obvious differences in the knowledge, adoption, and error in self-reporting between men and women. Having received training unanimously lowers knowledge misreports and increases adoption misreports. Other determinants of reporting error differ by gender. Misreporting is positively associated with a greater number of plots for men. Recall decay on measures of knowledge appears prominent among men but not women. Findings from regression and cost-effectiveness analyses always favor the collection of objective measures of knowledge. Given the lowest rate of accuracy for adoption was around 80 percent, costlier objective adoption measures are recommended for a subsample in regions with heterogeneous farm sizes