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Accelerating technical change through video-mediated agricultural extension: Evidence from Ethiopia
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 agricultural extension service provision on farmers’ knowledge and adoption of improved agricultural technologies and practices in Ethiopia. The study focuses on a program piloted by the Government of Ethiopia and Digital Green and poses three questions. First, to what extent does video-mediated extension lead to increased uptake of improved agricultural technologies and practices by smallholder farmers? S...
The state of agricultural extension services in Ethiopia and their contribution to agricultural productivity
We document the state of the extension system in Ethiopia and review the empirical evidence on the links between the key extension services provided, adoption of modern inputs, and agricultural productivity. In particular, we take stock of the provision of agricultural extension services, synthesize the evidence on the performance of the system, and suggest ways that it might contribute to accelerating agricultural growth and poverty reduction in the years ahead.
Synopsis: Geography of public service delivery in rural Ethiopia
Geography has been shown to be an important determinant of economic development. Remote areas tend to be poorer due to higher transaction costs for trade or inhospitable environments. In this study, we show that remote areas in rural Ethiopia are also disadvantaged in their access to public service delivery. Relying on large household surveys, we assessed the association between exposure to agriculture and health extension and two measures of remoteness: (1) the distance of service centers to district capitals; and (2) the distance of households to service centers (i.e., the last mile). We found that villages located farther away from district capitals were less likely to receive agricultura...
Accelerating technical change through ICTs: Evidence from a video-mediated extension experiment in Ethiopia
The use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to address a wide array of development issues has gained considerable attention among governments, practitioners, and researchers in recent years (Lwoga and Sangeda 2019). While early studies focused on mobile phones and text messaging, attention is quickly shifting to other media, including video. Many studies on the use of video as a medium explore how increased access and consumption of information can lead to behavior changes that ultimately result in welfare-improving outcomes. This study explores whether video-mediated extension leads to the increased, sustained uptake of productivity-enhancing agricultural technologies and ...
The (marginal) cost of technology adoption: A cost-effectiveness analysis of Digital Green’s video-mediated agricultural extension approach in Ethiopia
Since 2014, Digital Green and the Government of Ethiopia have been piloting a video-mediated approach to agricultural extension provision. The approach aims to increase the growth rate of yields and output for major food staples by encouraging farmers to adopt productivity-enhancing agricultural technologies and practices. The video-mediated extension approach is highlighted by three integrated components: production of short, localized video content, screening videos in group sessions facilitated by extension agents, and verification of the uptake of the target technologies and practices. A key tenet of this approach is its ability to increase adoption rates at a relatively low cost per farmer.
Food and nutrition security in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia during COVID-19 pandemic: July 2020 report Food and nutrition security in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia during COVID-19 pandemic: July 2020 report
In early July 2020, we called by telephone a representative sample of nearly 600 households in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to assess income changes and household food and nutrition security status during the COVID-19 pandemic (recall period covering June). This was the third administration of a COVID-19 related survey to these households, following surveys in early May 2020 and early June. About 64 percent of the households indicated in the third survey that their incomes were lower than expected (down from 67 percent reporting lower incomes than expected in previous month) and 42 percent reported that they are extremely stressed about the situation (down from 45 percent in previous month). Using ...
Transforming African agricultural markets through digital innovations: What we (do not) know
This policy note synthesizes the key messages and lessons from existing evidence and trends in the development, deployment and scale up of ICT-enabled marketing tools. It is based on the recently published discussion paper titled “Digital tools and agricultural market transformation in Africa: Why are they not at scale yet, and what will it take to get there”. Key messages • Many digital innovations have been developed and deployed in recent years in Africa, many of which have only been implemented at pilot stages, with limited evidence of successful scaling. • There remains significant marketing and institutional constraints hindering the development of some of these digital innovations, which may further explain disparate progress in countries. • Differential access to digital innovations across genders and different typologies of households may trigger alternative variants of digital divide. • Although the landscape of digital innovations in Africa offers several reasons to remain optimistic, the prevailing disconnect between pilots and scale-ups merits further evaluation.
Farmers’ quality assessment of their crops and its impact on commercialization behavior: A field experiment in Ethiopia
Adoption of quality-enhancing technologies is often driven largely by farmers’ expected returns from these technologies. Without proper grades, standards, and certification systems, however, farmers may remain uncertain about the actual financial return associated with their quality-enhancing investments. This report summarizes the outcomes of a short video-based randomized training intervention on wheat quality measurement and collective marketing among 15,000 wheat farmers in Ethiopia. Our results suggest that the intervention led to significant changes in farmers’ commercialization behaviors—namely, it prompted farmers to adopt behaviors geared toward assessing their wheat’s quali...
Buyers’ response to third-party quality certification: Theory and evidence from Ethiopian wheat traders
When quality attributes of a product are not directly observable, third-party certification (TPC) enables buyers to purchase the quality they are most interested in and reward sellers accordingly. Beyond product characteristics, buyers’ use of TPC services also depends on market conditions. We study the introduction of TPC in typical smallholder-based agriculture value chains of low-income countries, where traders must aggregate products from many small-scale producers before selling in bulk to downstream processors, and where introduction of TPC services has oftentimes failed. We develop a theoretical model identifying how different market conditions affect traders’ choice to purchase q...
Household food consumption patterns in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Overweight and obesity are rising rapidly in Ethiopia's urban areas, constituting a major public health concern. Dietary choices can be one of the key drivers of adult body-weight. Using data collected from a large household survey in Addis Ababa, we provide a snapshot of dietary patterns in Ethiopia's largest urban area. We find that starchy staples (cereals, roots, and tubers) are prominent in household food baskets, taking up 25 percent of the food budget and providing more than 50 percent of consumed calories, on average. In contrast, the consumption of all kinds of fruits and vitamin A-rich vegetables is very low. For the average household, meat products account for nearly 18 percent of...
