Despite a rapidly growing enthusiasm around applications of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to smallholder agriculture in developing countries, there are still many questions on the effectiveness of ICT-based approaches. This study assesses the effects of videomediated...

Several factors contribute to the low level of improved variety use in Ethiopia. Among those, on the supply side, is the limited availability of seed in the volumes, quality, and timeliness required by farmers, which is partly a result of limited public and private investment in the sector....

We show analytically and empirically that non-classical measurement errors in the two key variables in a hypothesized relationship can bias the estimated relationship between them in any direction. Furthermore, if these measurement errors are correlated, correcting for either one alone can...

Telescoping errors occur if survey respondents misdate consumption or expenditure episodes by including events from outside the reference period in their recall. Concern about telescoping influenced the design of early Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) surveys, which used a two-visit...

This study examines the impact of the Wheat Initiative technology package promoted by the research and extension systems in Ethiopia on wheat growers in the highlands of the country. The package includes improved wheat seed, a lower seeding density, row planting, fertilizer recommendations, and...

Ethiopia is currently embroiled in a large-scale civil war that has continued for more than a year. Using unique High-Frequency Phone Survey (HFPS) data, which spans several months before and after the outbreak of the war, this paper provides fresh evidence on the ex durante impacts of the...

Improving household resilience is becoming one of the key focus and target of social protection programs in Africa. However, there is surprisingly little direct evidence of the impacts of social protection programs on household resilience measures. We use five rounds of panel data to examine...

This paper combines pre-pandemic face-to-face survey data with follow up phone surveys collected in April-May 2020 to quantify the overall and differential impacts of COVID-19 on household food security, labor market participation and local food prices in Nigeria. We exploit spatial variation in...

Efforts to unlock the genetic potential of both rice and fish, when combined with efforts to improve the management of rice-fish systems, have considerable proven potential for increasing agricultural productivity and food security. In Bangladesh, estimates suggest that the country’s potential...

The genetic improvement of food staple crops cultivated by small-scale farmers is a well-established route to increasing agricultural productivity and improving rural livelihoods. But in developing countries where seed markets are commercially active or advancing in that direction, undue...