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Agricultural extension in times of crisis and emergent threats: Effectiveness of a fall armyworm information intervention in Myanmar Author
Agricultural extension can have important impacts on vulnerable populations by increasing food production, which improves both rural incomes and urban food security. Yet, crises induced by violent conflict or disease outbreaks can sever the connections between extension agents and farmers. Understanding how agricultural extension systems can safely and effectively reach farmers in times of crisis could help stabilize agri-food systems in fragile states. In the context of COVID-19, a military coup, and an emergent threat of fall armyworm in Myanmar, this paper uses a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of two cellphone-based extension interventions – a direct-to-farmer and a lead farmer intervention – for fall armyworm control in maize. Despite low compliance, both interventions caused knowledge improvements. However, damage control estimates show that the lead-farmer group used pesticides most effectively. Similar cellphone-based lead-farmer programs could be an effective tool in fragile states and when faced with emergent threats to agriculture.
Labor (mis?)measurement in agriculture
Livelihoods are changing rapidly in rural areas. Measuring and categorizing peoples’ labor activities in relation to the agricultural sector is important for understanding income earning opportunities and designing effective policy. Conventional data collection methods ask about individuals’ main work activities over the past year. Descriptions are recorded in the field, postcoded, and eventually categorized. This approach is costly to collect, fatiguing for respondents, and may create distortions. We show that a more direct approach, asking respondents to categorize their major work activities themselves, provides similar resulting data despite some caveats and lessons for best enumerat...
Improving the proof: Evolution of and emerging trends in impact assessment methods and approaches in agricultural development
Assessing impacts of public investments has long captured the interest and attention of the development community. This paper presents the evolution of different methods and approaches used for ex ante appraisal, monitoring, project evaluation, and impact assessment over the last five decades. Among these tools, impact assessment (IA) conducted retrospectively comes closest to providing the proof of development effectiveness. It is defined as the systematic analysis of the significant or lasting changes in people's lives brought about by a given action or series of actions in relation to a counterfactual. There are three basic types of retrospective IAs: macro-level IAs that focus on the con...
Survey design and rural labor measurement: Lessons from three studies
Effective policies and programs aiming to reduce poverty require a clear understanding of how people earn their livelihoods. While great gains have been made in the quantity and availability of data, capturing individuals’ labor supply and types of job activities is still challenging. Measuring employment is especially difficult in settings where productive activities are informal, leading to irregular intensity of engagement, and seasonal, where the majority of effort and earning is concentrated in specific periods of the year. These characteristics tend to be especially relevant in rural labor markets in low-income countries where agriculture and agriculture-linked employment are preeminent. In a set of three studies, IFPRI researchers Kate Ambler and Sylvan Herskowitz, in collaboration with Mywish Maredia of Michigan State University, explore the ways in which survey design can affect the quality of resulting labor data in rural populations. The papers examine the effects of household roster order, question type, and recall windows on resulting data. Survey design decisions matter and, if not careful, can induce unintended noise, or more troublingly, bias in resulting data.
COVID-19 in rural Malawi: Perceived risks and economic impacts
Malawi reported its first case of COVID-19 in April and declared a national emergency. Schools, bars and restaurants were closed, international flights suspended, and the economy faced considerable disruptions: quarterly growth projections from July were cut by more than 60% (Saldarriaga Noel et al. 2020). While still concerning, compared to other countries and other parts of the world, the spread of this disease in Malawi has been relatively modest with 5,951 confirmed cases and 184 COVID-19 linked deaths as of November 8, 2020. After accelerating rates of infection in June and July, the rates have decreased over the last two months.1 In response, there has been a partial return to normalcy, marked by easing COVID-19 restrictions and the reopening of schools at the beginning of September, even while the future trajectory of the disease remains unknown.
COVID-19 in rural Malawi: Perceived risks and economic impacts round 2
This note summarizes perceptions of COVID-19 impacts and risks from a panel phone survey of rural households in eight districts in rural Malawi. While the results from the first round conducted in August 2020 were reported in a previous brief, this note will focus on the evolution of indicators from round 1 to round 2, conducted in November 2020. The sample comprises 833 households interviewed in both survey rounds. Two additional follow-up survey rounds are planned for 2021. The survey was originally designed to measure the seasonality of labor activities but was adjusted to assess COVID-19 impacts and perceptions in rural Malawi. Though initial concern of the impact of COVID-19 on Malawi was high at the start of the global pandemic, case numbers stayed relatively low through the end of 2020. Seven-day averages of 50-100 cases during the first survey round had dropped to under 5 in the fourth quarter of the year. Our analysis will examine how people’s perceptions evolved during this period of low infections.
The quality of agriculture and food security policy processes at national level in Malawi: Results from the 2017/18 Malawi Agriculture and Food Security Policy Processes Endline Survey
Over the past ten years, there have been several initiatives in Malawi to strengthen the processes through which the design and content of policies, strategies, and programs in the agriculture sector that affect the nation’s food security are established. In this report we present results of a study to assess the quality of these policy processes and the institutional framework through which they are conducted and how perceptions of the quality of those processes and institutions is changing over time. The study is based on a two-round survey of national stakeholders in Malawi on issues centered on agriculture or food security that was conducted in 2015 and 2017/18.
COVID-19 in rural Malawi: Perceived risks and economic impacts rounds 1-4
This project note discusses findings from a panel phone survey in Malawi in which respondents were asked about their perceptions of the risks and impacts of COVID-19. Previous findings from the first and second rounds of the survey were discussed in two previous project notes. This note focuses on changes in indicators across rounds, using only panel households. The panel comprises households in eight rural districts in Malawi who were interviewed four times between July 2020 and July 2021. This study builds on a survey originally designed to measure seasonal changes in labor activities. However, as the pandemic spread, the survey was modified to include questions about COVID-19’s risks and impacts on their lives.
Conflict and agricultural performance: Evidence from Myanmar
Recent years have witnessed an escalation in conflict, especially in developing countries where a significant proportion of the population relies on agriculture. It is crucial to understand how these conflicts impact agricultural production, given its importance for food security and agricultural transformation in these regions. However, research exploring how persistent conflicts affect agriculture is still nascent. Our study adds to this body of research by establishing a causal link between ongoing conflicts and their impact on paddy production, a primary staple crop in Myanmar. This analysis is based on data from a nationally representative phone survey conducted amidst active conflicts....
Monitoring the impact of COVID-19 in Myanmar: Agricultural input retailers - Synopsis of results from five survey rounds through late July 2020
Agricultural input retailers play a key role in Myanmar’s agri-food system by supplying farmers with fertilizer, seed, pesticides, and other inputs necessary for successful harvests. Because farm-level input use is an important driver of yields for all major food crops, shocks from the COVID-19 crisis to the input retail sector have major implications for rural household welfare as well as food security. In this policy note, we present results and analysis on the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on agricultural input retailers from a five-round telephone panel survey of between 150 and 200 retailers in Shan, Kachin, Bago, Ayeyarwady, Sagaing, and Mandalay that was implemented every two weeks...
