Labour, profitability and gender impacts of adopting row planting in Ethiopia

Improved technologies are increasingly promoted to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to address low agricultural productivity. There is, however, a lack of evidence on how adoption affects farmers’ labour use, gender roles and profitability. This paper analyses the farm level impacts of the recently int...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Vandercasteelen, Joachim, Dereje, Mekdim, Minten, Bart, Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum
Format: Journal Article
Language:Inglés
Published: Oxford University Press 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/147333
Description
Summary:Improved technologies are increasingly promoted to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to address low agricultural productivity. There is, however, a lack of evidence on how adoption affects farmers’ labour use, gender roles and profitability. This paper analyses the farm level impacts of the recently introduced row planting technology in teff production in Ethiopia. Using a randomised controlled trial, we show that row planting significantly increases the total labour requirement and allocation but not teff yields, resulting in a substantial drop in labour productivity. There is no significant profitability effect at the farm level, seemingly explaining the limited success in upscaling the programme.