The Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) and its Impacts on marketed crops: Data Analysis of the Kano-Katsina-Maradi Pilot Learning Site

Several attempts have been made by various governmental, non-governmental and international organisations to address agricultural related challenges in the sub-Saharan African region, but without any meaningful positive impact. In recent time however, FARA came up with a new research paradigm known as the IAR4D (which has now been tested to be a potent instrument to be used in addressing these challenges. This study is therefore conceived to among other things; evaluate the impact of the IAR4D on marketed crop outcomes, making use of the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method of imapct Assessment. The PSM in this study makes use of the counterfactual framework via the IAR4D’s Innovation Platforms. Average marketed values of cereals of the treated (IAR4D farmers) sample due to participation in the IP activities based on the PSM (ATT) was $ 249 (p<5%), for legumes, $ 192 (p<1%) and for fruits/vegetables, $ 229 (p<5%). These values are indication of the impact of the IAR4D intervention on the marketed crop outcomes. This suggests that, agricultural research and intervention programmes that make use of innovation systems approach such as the IAR4D’ Innovation Platforms have a stong positive impact on marketed crop outcomes and therefore have a better potential of having much stronger and positive impact on other livelihood outcomes.