The impact of the use of new technologies on farmers’ wheat yield in Ethiopia: evidence from a randomized control trial
基于随机对照试验，测量了埃塞俄比亚小麦倡议技术包及其营销援助对农户产量的影响，发现全套技术包使产量平均提高14%。
In 2013, Ethiopia's Agricultural Transformation Agency introduced the Wheat Initiative to increase smallholder productivity. In this article, we measure the impacts of the Wheat Initiative package of technologies, and its marketing assistance component alone, on yields among a promotional group of farmers. The package includes improved techniques, improved inputs, and a guaranteed market for the crop. Relying on crop-cut measures and farmers' own assessments, we find that full package led to an average 14% higher yields. Implementation of the Wheat Initiative was successful in making certified seed and fertilizer accessible to farmers and increasing their uptake, though only 61% of the intervention group adopted row planting and few farmers received marketing assistance. The measured yield difference may underestimate the true yield difference associated with the technology because of incomplete adoption of the recommended practices by intervention farmers and adoption of some practices by control farmers.