Joachim Vandercasteelen

Cities and Agricultural Transformation in Africa: Evidence from Ethiopia

Due to the rapid growth of cities in Africa, a larger number of farmers is living in the rural hinterland providing food to urban residents. However, empirical evidence on how urbanization affects these farmers is scarce. To fill this gap, this paper explores the relationship between proximity to a city and the production behavior of rural staple crop producers. More in particular, we analyze unique data from teff producing farmers in major producing areas around Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. We find that farmers more closely located to Addis Ababa face higher wages and land rental prices, but because they receive higher teff prices they have better incentives to intensify production. Moreover, we observe that modern input use, land and labor productivity, and profitability in teff production improve with urban proximity. There is a strong and significant direct effect of urban proximity, which is suggested to be related with more use of formal factor markets, less transaction costs, and better access to information. In contrast, we do not find strong and positive relationships of rural population density increases - as an alternative source of agricultural transformation - as they seem to lead to immiserizing effects in these settings. Our results show that urban proximity should be considered as an important determinant of the process of agricultural intensification and transformation in developing countries.

Perceptions, impacts and rewards of row planting of teff

This study analyzes the perceptions, impacts, and rewards of farmers who adopted row planting for the production of teff as a result of being exposed to a technology promotion campaign for row planting of teff in the Oromia region of Ethiopia.

From Agricultural Experiment Station to Farm: The Impact of the Promotion of a New Technology on Farmers' Yields in Ethiopia

Adoption of yield-increasing technologies is crucial to boost staple food production in sub-Saharan Africa. However, empirical evidence is lacking on the impact of improved agricultural technologies that are scaled up from research at agricultural experiment stations to the farm level. We assess the impact of a new technology, row planting, on farmers’ yields of teff in Ethiopia. Results of a randomized controlled trial show that row planting did not significantly affect teff yields at the farm level. While the treatment effect measured on village demonstration plots managed by extension agents is significant and positive, its magnitude is still lower than the productivity gains found on research plots. To explain the yield gaps between research plots at experiment stations, village demonstration plots, and farm plots, ex post analysis of treatment heterogeneity shows that the literacy level and information access of adopting households have significant interaction effects. Results further suggest that the yield gap is linked to the quality of extension and timely input delivery provided to farmers when transmitting the technology to the field. Greater attention to the design and implementation of public promotion programs appears critical to effectively scale up the adoption of improved technologies in these settings.