Horticulture is a major source of income and nutrition for many households in Malawi. However, horticultural markets are fragmented and uncoordinated, and many small-scale farmers also have limited know-how to produce high-quality crops. This ALL-IN project addresses these challenges with information and communications technology (ICT) interventions that create a virtual marketplace to connect horticultural sellers to buyers and a platform that provides agricultural extension services to farmers remotely. These innovations could resolve key barriers restraining small-scale horticultural producers, particularly women, from accessing markets and sustaining resilient livelihoods. 

Project Overview

Lead Principal Investigator: Robertson Khataza, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources

Project Partners: Indian School of Business; University of California, Santa Cruz; World Bank

Development Innovation: Digital innovations to match demand and supply in horticultural trade

Commodity: Horticultural produce

Targeted Population: Smallholder farmers and market vendors 

Country/Location: Malawi

Timeline: 2021-2023

Funding: $350,858 (USAID)

The Challenge

Horticultural crops, which consist of vegetables and other agricultural produce that are not considered staples like maize or rice, can provide an important source of income for small-scale farmers as well as local traders. However, selling horticultural products can be challenging because of requirements for quality and the high risk of spoilage. 

In Malawi, small-scale horticulture producers often incur high costs of transporting their products to local markets but also face a risk of not selling all the produce. At the same time, vendors struggle to establish a consistent supply, sometimes having too much to sell, which leads to lower prices or spoilage, and sometimes having too little, which leads to losing potential sales.

Another factor that limits the sale of horticultural products is quality. Most small-scale farmers do not have the know-how on good cultivation and post-harvest practices required to produce products that will readily sell on the open market. Agricultural extension services could help farmers to build this knowledge, but in Malawi those services are limited. According to a 2017 report by IFPRI and USAID,1 Malawi has about 2,500 farmers assigned to each extension officer, a number that is far higher than other countries in the region. 

Research Design

An ALL-IN research team led by Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources is implementing information communications technology (ICT) interventions in Malawi that coordinate local horticulture markets and support small-scale farmers in producing high-quality products for sale. The first is a virtual marketplace in the form of a cell phone-based app to connect buyers and sellers. The second is an interactive voice response (IVR)-based agricultural extension hotline that farmers can call from their cell phones to access advisory services and improve the quality of their produce. 

The research team is implementing these two interventions as a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in order to measure their true impacts by comparing outcomes for farmers and vendors in markets that receive the virtual market app and extension hotline to similar farmers and vendors in markets that don’t. 

The project takes place in 150 market centers throughout Malawi. The team is measuring outcomes in a number of different areas for both farmers and vendors, including agricultural yields, revenues and profits, use of mobile money, rates of spoilage and other measures that indicate better-integrated markets. The project includes a total of 1,200 vendors and farmers.

The intervention is designed to impact all crops with a particular focus on vegetables, since barriers to trading vegetables are more severe due to their perishability. There are two main vegetable seasons in Malawi, one occurring from December to April and a second during the dry months from May to November. Prior to the beginning of the vegetable season, the research teams are conducting meetings with groups of vendors as well as village meetings with farmers. In these meetings, the virtual marketplace app is introduced, and people will be given a chance to experiment with its functionality. 

Development Impact

These paired ICT interventions could show potential to provide wide benefits across local horticulture markets in Malawi. For farmers, they could reduce transaction costs and facilitate sales, increasing profits and reducing spoilage. For vendors, these interventions could increase access to high-quality produce while improving inventory management, both of which can increase sales and profits.

This project aligns with The Feed the Future Multi-Year Strategy for Malawi and Malawi Government plans that focus on reducing poverty and under-nutrition. Supporting entrepreneurship and sustainably achieving food and nutrition security are among the Malawi Government’s policy goals pursued through the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS). The project also aligns with the USAID Country Development Cooperation Strategy for Malawi by supporting resilient households, communities and systems to manage and reduce vulnerabilities (IR 3.1) as well as an enabling environment for wealth creation (IR 3.3).

The project also explicitly focuses on the inclusive and transformative gender approach, which seeks to promote economic empowerment among women by improving their entrepreneurial knowledge through the use of smart technologies. Women farmers in Malawi are actively involved in food-commodity trade, especially in the selling of vegetables and fruits in local markets.

[1] Cai, T., et al. 2017. “Malawi: Desk Study of Extension and Advisory Services – Developing Local Extension Capacity (DLEC) Project.” USAID/IFPRI. 

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement 7200AA19LE00004. The contents are the responsibility of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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Large-scale land transactions in developing countries are intended to transform agricultural systems through domestic and foreign investments in commercialization. However, the welfare impacts these transactions have on local communities remains unclear. This ALL-IN project is measuring the impacts of large-scale land transactions in Ethiopia and identifying the communities and households who benefit and those who does not. The results contribute evidence on how these transactions affect rural resilience, economic growth, gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Project Overview

Principal Investigator: Solomon Zena Walelign, University of Gondar

Project Partners: Ethiopian Economics Association; University of California, Berkeley

Development Innovation: Large-scale land transfers

Commodity: Multiple

Targeted Population: Small-scale farmers 

Country/Location: Ethiopia Benishangul-Gumuz and Gambella Regions

Timeline: 2021-2024

Funding: $439,233 (USAID)

The Challenge

Governments in developing countries are conducting large-scale land transactions (LSLTs), transfers of at least 1,000 hectares for domestic and capital investments, at a historically unprecedented pace. Over the past decade, at least 50 million hectares have changed hands through these transfers, directly affecting over 12 million people in rural communities.[1]

The government of Ethiopia has earmarked more than 11.5 million hectares of land for this purpose, a total area more than four times the size of the US state of Massachusetts. From 2005 through 2015, the government transferred about 2.47 million hectares, most of it from the earmarked land, to investors.[2] The government suspended the program indefinitely in 2016 without transferring all the earmarked land due to implementation challenges. 

These transactions have had uneven impacts on local communities in the Benishangul-Gumuz and Gambella regions where the majority of lands for these transactions have been earmarked and transferred. They have denied local communities in these regions, with inadequate compensation, of rights to land that has provided about 28 percent of their income from livestock grazing, collecting fodder and wood for fuel.[3] On the other hand, the transactions have reportedly generated alternative incomes, including jobs and higher agricultural production through technology and knowledge transfers. 

The broader impacts of LSLTs are unclear, as well as what communities and households are most affected. LSLTs may generate growth by enabling business development, which expands access to markets and services and increases jobs and entrepreneurship. It could also be that LSLTs weaken resilience among people and systems by taking away from risk management strategies, inhibiting adaptations to shocks and degrading natural resources.

Research Design

This ALL-IN project led from the University of Gondar is testing the impacts of LSLTs on rural communities in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz and Gambella regions. In particular, the research is identifying who benefits from these transfers and who does not, with a focus on the causes of those varying impacts. The study measures those impacts based on the difference in the amount of land earmarked and transferred land across districts in the regions specifically.

The Ethiopian government targeted and earmarked land in a total of eight districts in the Benishangul-Gumuz region and ten in the Gambella region for agricultural investment through LSLTs. Actual transfers occurred in four of districts in Benishangul-Gumuz and in six districts in Gambella. Communities within these regions are very similar in terms of the religious and ethnic composition of communities as well as environmental qualities like rainfall patterns and soil qualities. Most of the communities in both regions farm, raise livestock or both.  

This difference between where LSLTs have taken place and where they have not makes it possible to measure a number of impacts for individual households. These impacts include local economic activities and labor markets, education, employment, living standards, migration and whether LSLTs empower or disempower vulnerable social groups like ethnic minorities and women. 

In both regions, the study includes a randomly selected sample of 1,000 households from areas that experienced LSLTs and 1,000 households in areas that did not for a total of 4,000 participants. The research team is also measuring any spillover impacts from communities affected by LSLTs and nearby communities. 

Development Impact

Agricultural ministries across the global south are including LSLTs in their long-term strategic plans as a way to accelerate agricultural commercialization. In Ethiopia, LSLTs were intensified during the five-year Growth and Transformation Plan that seeks to improve food security, create jobs, accumulate capital and promote exports by attracting domestic and international investments. This ALL-IN project will build evidence on how LSLTs contribute to or detract from these and other goals. 

The project directly contributes to the Feed the Future objectives of inclusive sustainable agriculture-led economic growth, strengthened resilience among people and systems, as well as the cross-cutting intermediate result of increased gender equality and women’s empowerment. The project addresses USAID Ethiopia’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) Development Objective 3 by investigating how LSLTs and private sector-led economic growth interact with agricultural transformation and market inclusivity. 

[1] Davis, K. F., et al. 2014. “Land grabbing: A preliminary quantification of economic impacts on rural livelihoods.” Population and environment.
[2] Teklemariam, D., et al. 2015. “Transnational land deals: Towards an inclusive land governance framework.” Land Use Policy.
[3] Angelsen, A., et al. 2014. “Environmental income and rural livelihoods: a global-comparative analysis.” World Development.

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement 7200AA19LE00004. The contents are the responsibility of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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While northern Nigeria is a critical agricultural region, rural families there face high risks related to climate change. Agricultural index insurance products tailored for the region’s predominantly Muslim farmers may promote resilience to weather shocks like drought or flood. A Feed the Future ALL-IN research team is developing and testing a Sharia-compliant takaful mutual insurance contract that triggers payments in the event that there is a weather anomaly. The results of this project could unlock the financing needed to drive the development of inclusive agricultural value chains in the region. 

Project Overview

Lead Principal Investigator: Peter P. Njiforti, Ahmadu Bello University

Project Partners: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet)

Development Innovation: Sharia-compliant mutual (takaful) weather-index crop insurance with photo confirmation

Commodity: Sorghum and millet

Targeted Population: Small-scale farmers

Country/Location: Sudano-Sahelian Zone of Nigeria

Timeline: 2021-2024

Funding: $199,055.72 (USAID)

The Challenge

Nigeria’s northern region contributes significantly to the nation’s food and nutrition security with its agrarian economy of rain-fed crops, livestock farming and fishing. While the critical staples millet and sorghum are two of the most widely grown crops in the region, yields in the Sudano-Sahelian zone have begun to stagnate due to extreme weather caused by climate change.[1]   

Agricultural index insurance is designed to manage just this kind of risk. Agricultural index insurance bases payouts on an easy-to-measure index of factors, such as rainfall or average yields, that predict individual losses. The result is low-cost protection for farmers who face a predictable, recurring risk like drought or flood.

One limitation for index insurance in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Nigeria, where Muslims are majority and the Islamic socio-cultural beliefs predominate, is that conventional insurance is not in compliance with Islamic law.[2] A market survey undertaken by the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Commission (NAIC)[3] revealed a significant objection to conventional insurance, which, according to Islamic law, involves uncertainty, gambling and interest. 

Another challenge for agricultural index insurance is that policies might not pay accurately for losses. In 2011, NAIC and the World Bank developed two pilot index insurance contracts for rice and maize in northern Nigeria based on measures of rainfall. An analysis showed that these contracts would not pay reliably for farmers’ losses in part because of the nature of rainfall conditions in the region. 

Research Design

An ALL-IN research team led from Ahmadu Bello University is testing whether a takaful weather index insurance and a picture-based insurance audit can increase rural families’ resilience to extreme weather events in the Sudano-Sahelian zones of Nigeria. Weather stations in the region create a ready source for rainfall and temperature data to build and test randomized variations of the team’s new weather index insurance contracts.

The project is being implemented as a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in 50 rural communities that are divided into three groups:

• Weather index-based insurance: Farmers receive standard weather index insurance that triggers payments for losses in the case of abnormal temperature or unseasonal rains during flowering and harvest time in the area. 
• Mutual (Takaful) insurance plus financial literacy training: The Sharia-compliant takaful index-based insurance product is complemented with training on the benefits of insurance as well as the concept of takaful insurance. Farmers regularly upload smartphone pictures that extension experts inspect for crop damage due to risks beyond farmers’ control before payouts are issued.  
• Control: Farmers receive no insurance or training

The project includes farmers who own smartphones and plan to grow at least two hectares of maize during the upcoming rainy season in eight states across Northern Nigeria. Farmers are selected according to a variety of stratifications to ensure different types of typical farmers are included. Farmers who receive either conventional or takaful insurance are provided coverage for up to one hectare of sorghum or millet. The cost of the insurance is paid entirely by the project’s NAIC and Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) research partners.

The study is measuring outcomes in a number of areas. One is an estimate of how a mutual weather index insurance scheme that is compliant with the Islamic principle of Takaful affects the demand and use of weather index-based insurance. The study is also evaluating the impact of uptake and use of mutual (takaful) weather index insurance on farmers’ investments in enhancing productivity and yields as well as whether this type of scheme paired with information on weather risk reduces the likelihood the insurance product fails to pay accurately for losses.

Development Impact

Key USAID priorities in Nigeria are in agriculture and food security. This research project will complement and strengthen activities related to agriculture and food security which, since 2012, have helped to increase agricultural productivity, expand market participation, increase the resilience of vulnerable households, improve the business enabling environment and increase access to finance.

Results from this project will also enable NAIC and NIRSAL to meet their goal of expanding insurance to Nigeria’s roughly 15 million smallholder farmers. These efforts could ultimately unlock the needed financing to drive the development of inclusive agricultural value chains in the region.

[1] Rhodes, E. R., et al. 2019. “Climate change impact chain factors in ECOWAS.” Journal of Agriculture and Environment for International Development.
[2] Swartz, P., et al. 2010. “Takaful: An Islamic insurance instrument.” Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics.
[3] NAIC, 2013.

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement 7200AA19LE00004. The contents are the responsibility of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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Linking smallholder farmers and markets in Sub-Saharan Africa is key to unlocking full agricultural potential in the region given its bulging population, poverty, urbanization and food security challenges. Farmers face poor road networks, price fluctuation and a lack of market information, all of which makes digital innovation a critical alternative way to link farmers to markets. In Nigeria, a Feed the Future ALL-IN research team is providing digital literacy training so farmers can use their mobile phones to access e-commerce to sell their harvest. 

Project Overview

Lead Principal Investigator: Khadijat B. Amolegbe, University of Ilorin

Co-Principal Investigator: Sènakpon F. A. Dedehouanou, FASEG, Université d’Abomey Calavi (UAC)

Project Partners: Agriple, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Tufts University

Development Innovation: Digital literacy and access to e-commerce

Commodity: Arable crops

Targeted Population: Rural smallholder farmers 

Country/Location: Nigeria

Timeline: 2020-2023

Funding: $434,046 (USAID)

The Challenge

Many small-scale farmers lack ready and reliable markets to sell their harvest. As a result, they have no incentive to venture into large-scale farming to generate higher income. Linking smallholder farmers to markets is an important policy objective in Sub-Saharan Africa. Easy access to output markets offers farmers the possibility of selling their products at remunerative prices and improving their welfare.[1]

The rapid digital transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa is changing regional food systems and presenting an opportunity to strengthen access to rural output markets. However, the digital transformation in rural areas is accompanied by a growing digital divide due to limited digital literacy, which may limit rural farmers from exploring opportunities such as digital marketing platforms that could increase the value and volume of trade for their agricultural commodities.

Sufficient literacy is required to use and unlock the potentials of digital marketing platforms. However, many of the interventions targeted at linking rural farmers to markets via digital platforms fail to include digital literacy components.[2] Farmers are often not well equipped to evaluate the suitability of digital platforms and interventions. Farmers are external to the design of the platforms and such interventions are not based on the farmers’ demand or need. 

Research Design

An ALL IN research team has launched a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that builds digital literacy among rural farming households in Nigeria as a means of improving their access to output markets. The study is assessing the relationship between digital literacy and market access and exploring how digital literacy can spur the demand for digital marketing platforms in rural areas. 

The experiment is separately testing digital skills training and access to a digital literacy directory that farmers can leverage to sell their outputs through digital platforms. The digital skills training program covers basic skills, and training is delivered in the local language of the farming community. The digital directory contains details of certified online marketing platforms, digital marketing experts and website developers.

The team has adopted a three-stage random selection process for this RCT. A total of 2,496 households from 312 farming communities with mobile-internet coverage are participating. The two treatment arms and control group are:

• T1: Digital skills training and a 500-naira internet voucher to be used during the training.
• T2: Digital skills training and voucher plus a copy of a digital literacy directory.
• Control: Receives neither the training nor the directory, but will receive the 500-naira internet voucher. 

The team is measuring multiple outcomes related to household welfare status, market access and the potential for using digital platforms to connect farmers to markets. Market access is measured as household annual sales value. 

The team is also measuring a household’s willingness-to-pay (WTP) for Agriple, an agricultural e-commerce platform that serves as the case study for the digital literacy training. Agriple is a Nigerian start-up founded in 2019 that allows farmers to list their products for sale for up to a month before harvest. Agriple also has an insurance partner, Guinea Insurance Plc, that insures all transactions managed via the digital platform.

Development Impact

New and emerging challenges like COVID-19 have exposed the limitations of the agricultural supply chain in developing countries. They have also made policymakers recognize the importance of digital transformation and innovations in agricultural systems.

This project will ready its main components for rapid scaling, if successful. The digital literacy directory can continue to be updated as a directory of rural e-commerce platforms, digital marketing experts and website developers. The digital literacy curriculum developed for this project can also be adapted by multiple stakeholders to address the digital divide between urban and rural areas, particularly for vulnerable groups like women. 

This project will also provide critical market research that could spur private investments in expanding access to e-commerce. The Agriple WTP results will provide evidence on the demand for rural e-commerce thereby informing the scale-up investment decisions of Agriple and other private investors that may also recognize the opportunity to replicate the platform and invest in the rural e-commerce market. 

[1] Poole, N. 2017. Smallholder agriculture and market participation. Rugby, UK: Practical Action Publishing.
[2] Aker, J.C., et al. 2016. “The promise (and pitfalls) of ICT for agriculture initiatives.” Agricultural Economics.

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement 7200AA19LE00004. The contents are the responsibility of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by smallholder farmers who have limited ways to cope with catastrophic droughts and other weather-related shocks. These challenges are particularly severe for women farmers in Nigeria and other developing countries where cultural norms and commercial practices limit their access to financial and insurance markets that could help them to manage that risk. This Feed the Future ALL-IN project is testing interlinked credit, index insurance and cultivation of stress-tolerant maize varieties to strengthen women’s productivity, income and resilience.

Project Overview

Principal Investigator: Opeyemi Eyitayo Ayinde, University of Ilorin

Project Partners: Arise Microfinance Bank Lagos, Federal University of Technology Akure, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), National Agricultural Insurance  Corporation (NAIC), and The Ohio State University

Development Innovation: Interlinked credit, insurance and stress-tolerant maize variety​​​​​

Commodity: Maize

Targeted Population: Smallholder women farmers 

Country/Location: Southern Guinea Savannah Zone of Nigeria

Timeline: 2021-2024

Funding: $430,434 (USAID)

The Challenge

Financial and agricultural technologies could help women farmers in Nigeria to build their resilience to shocks. Among the most promising of these innovations are stress-tolerant crop varieties, such as improved maize developed by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) through the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project. These seed varieties have proven to sustain yields during moderate mid-season drought.

Financial technologies such as index insurance build resilience by providing financial literacy and payments in the event of insured losses. Index insurance bases payouts on an index of factors, such as rainfall or vegetation growth, that predict crop losses in an area. Because this type of insurance does not require a direct verification of losses, it can be made available at a much lower cost than conventional insurance and cost-effectively scaled across dispersed rural communities. 

On their own, these two innovations separately may not adequately promote resilience among farmers, particularly women. It is important to build our understanding of how to integrate these two technologies into comprehensive solutions to manage weather-related risk and how they might be tailored to meet the different needs and attitudes of women and men.

Research Design

This ALL-IN research, led from the University of Ilorin, is testing whether a bundle of financial services, insurance and stress-tolerant maize varieties can build resilience to shocks among smallholder farmers in Nigeria. The project includes an equal proportion of women and men from 96 randomly selected villages across four states in Nigeria. 

This project is being implemented as a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine the impacts of the treatments apart from any other factors that could change the selected outcomes. The RCT divides villages selected to participate in the study into four groups:

• T1: Training on stress-tolerant maize plus seeds offered at a partially subsidized price for three years
• T2: In the first year only, farmers receive financial literacy training and are invited to apply for a subsidized production loan of up to $200 and, if approved for the loan, are given an area-yield index insurance contract covering up to 50 percent of the value of the loan
• T3: Both T1 and T2 interventions
• Control: No programming 

The baseline survey collects data on farmers’ socioeconomic characteristics as well as their attitudes towards financial services, insurance and stress-tolerant maize. After each year’s planting season, the team is collecting data on farmers’ plots. The team is also designing a logbook for participating farmers to regularly record their farming activities.

The research team is measuring multiple outcomes by gender. The project is measuring differences in men’s and women’s access to financial services, insurance and stress-tolerant seeds. The project is also analyzing differences in men’s and women’s willingness to adopt these three tools as well as how they perceive agricultural risk.

The project treatments are provided by partner organizations. The STMA research team is providing farmers the training on stress-tolerant maize and is subsidizing the purchase cost of the seeds. SHINE is providing the financial literacy training and making the production loan available. The research team is paying the cost of the index insurance coverage. 

Development Impact

Understanding constraints on women farmers and the forces that drive gender gaps in agricultural productivity and resilience is critical for developing policies that bring inclusive benefits across rural communities. This project provides evidence on instruments that help women smallholder farmers to better cope with agriculture-related risks that dominate Nigeria’s agricultural sector. 

This project also supports a number of USAID and Feed the Future objectives in Nigeria. As outlined in the USAID Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) for Nigeria, this project contributes to Objective 1 of inclusive economic growth by building income, food security and private sector contributions. The project also supports the Special Objective of greater stability and early recovery by creating new ways for farmers to become resilient to weather-related shocks. These objectives overlap with Feed the Future activities in Nigeria that seek to improve farmers’ access to finance, agricultural inputs and technologies for strengthening resilience with a particular focus on empowering women and youth.

Through its private-sector partners, the project is creating an enabling environment for rural smallholder men and women farmers to access financial services and insurance that could increase their productivity and resilience to shocks. It will promote the adoption of stress-tolerant seeds while building the capacity of farmers, extension agents and researchers in Nigeria.

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement 7200AA19LE00004. The contents are the responsibility of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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The shea value chain in Ghana is dominated by women, from picking shea nuts to processing them into commodities for a growing global market. Shea presents a powerful opportunity to address poverty and food insecurity, but a lack of credit as well as informal repayment contracts may keep producers from improvements in households welfare. This Feed the Future ALL-IN project tests credit and formal repayment contracts in Northern Ghana, which may increase the sector’s profitability and overall shea supply while empowering women to receive the full benefits of their work.

Project Overview

Lead Principal Investigator: Fred Dzanku, Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana

Project Partners: Presbyterian Agricultural Services (PAS), META Foundation, Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV), Northwestern University, USAID Ghana

Development Innovation: Pre-financing arrangements with formal repayment contracts

Commodity: Shea

Targeted Population: Women shea producers and processors 

Country/Location: Northern Ghana

Timeline: 2021-2024

Funding: $450,000 (USAID)

The Challenge

Northern Ghana is generally poorer than the southern part of the country in multiple dimensions, but particularly with respect to income, assets and infrastructure. Solutions to these challenges should be mindful of opportunities to also bridge gender gaps with a focus on women’s economic and social outcomes. 

The shea tree is an important cash crop in the northern regions of Ghana where poverty is highest and increasing.[1] Shea butter is an important local commodity. Families can use shea butter as cooking oil and can process it into local cosmetic products such as pomades and soaps. The shea value chain provides many families a supplementary household income between the harvests of staple crops.

The production of shea nuts and butter are among the most accessible income-generating activities for rural women in Northern Ghana and contribute immensely to household food security.[2] More than 80 percent of activities in the region’s shea value chain are carried out by women,[3] including shea nut picking, processing and marketing.

The upsurge of globalization in the shea sector presents new opportunities to integrate shea into national and international value chains. However, constraints across the sector, including shea producers’ lack of negotiating power, severely limit how much the value chain can reduce women’s poverty and food insecurity. 

Credit to be repaid with shea nuts at a pre-negotiated rate may overcome some of these challenges, particularly if credit contracts are formal or written rather than only verbal. Written or formal contracts may be more effective because the parties involved may see such contracts as more binding. There is also no experimental evidence on how the formality of credit contracts affects a borrower’s welfare. 

Research Design

This Feed the Future ALL-IN study led from the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana is testing whether credit and formal credit contracts affect the total supply of shea nuts in the sector and the household welfare of women shea producers in Northern Ghana. This  randomized controlled trial (RCT) includes 2,715 rural households selected in collaboration with Presbyterian Agricultural Services (PAS), META Foundation and the USAID Ghana office.

This RCT makes it possible to rigorously test the impacts of credit contract formality on household welfare by randomly assigning similar households to receive either a verbal credit contract or a written one. The study includes a total of 2,715 women shea producers from 135 communities who are randomly assigned to one of three groups:

• Credit with verbal contract: 800 participants receive credit with only a verbal contract to repay with shea kernels. 
• Credit with written contract: 800 participants receive credit with written contracts to repay with shea kernels. 
• Control: 1,115 women will receive no programming and their outcomes will provide a comparison to estimate the average impacts for participants in the two experimental groups.

Providing both credit and formal contracts may increase the shea kernel supply and profits in part because together they guarantee a minimum stable price. The formal written contract may also improve supply by reducing side selling or price changes that undermine contact arrangements. 

Development Impact

Over the past decade, the shea value chain has consistently featured in initiatives from the Government of Ghana, USAID and other development partners seeking to bridge the north-south divide in poverty and food security. This project could increase the profitability of shea processing by improving the coordination of supply and demand, which in turn could increase investments in the sector. 

Women in particular will benefit from strengthening the shea sector. Strengthening a sector that can increase women’s access to cash income and overall social and economic empowerment could also bridge gender gaps in social and economic outcomes.

This project seeks to address key challenges that keep women and their communities from higher profits and incomes as well as an increased overall supply within the shea value chain. Better prices for productivity, a greater total quantity of marketable shea products and better market coordination should all increase shea value chain profits, while also increasing women’s social and economic empowerment.

[1] Ghana Statistical Service, 2018
[2] Hatskevich et al. 2014. “Shea butter processing as an engine of poverty reduction in Northern Ghana: Case study of four communities in the Bolgatanga Municipality.” African Journal of Agricultural Research.
[3] Yayah, A. 2020. “Investigating the sustainability of the shea industry among rural women in Northern Ghana.” Stellenbosch University.

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement 7200AA19LE00004. The contents are the responsibility of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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Drought is a constant threat across Sub-Saharan Africa. A new government initiative in Ghana is building rain-fed dams to irrigate small-scale farmer communities, but these dams may dry up during a severe drought. An ALL-IN research team is testing an innovative bundle of supplemental irrigation and a complementary index insurance product to expands farmers’ overall drought protection. This innovation could unlock investments that leverage the benefits of irrigation and better-managed risk, further improving long-term agricultural growth and resilience in rural communities.

Project Overview

Principal Investigators: John K. M. Kuwornu, University of Energy and Natural Resources; Francis H. Kemeze, African Development Bank

Project Partners: Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool, Ghana Irrigation Development Authority, International Water Management Institute, One Village One Dam Initiative (1V1D), The Ohio State University

Development Innovation: Bundled small-scale irrigation and index insurance

Commodity: Maize and rice

Targeted Population: Small-scale farmers 

Country/Location: Northern Ghana

Timeline: 2021-2024

Funding: $398,869 (USAID)

The Challenge

Frequent dry spells and drought keep farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa from improving their livelihoods for different reasons. When there is a risk of losing crops to drought, farmers avoid spending in technologies that promise to increase their yields and income.[1] Microloans are harder to obtain because drought can lead to widespread loan defaults.[2]

Over the past two decades, significant attention and resources have been allocated to the development and expansion of weather index insurance as a tool for farmers in developing countries to effectively manage drought risk.[3] However, demand for weather index insurance has been very low in Sub-Saharan Africa due to a lack of affordability, competition with informal risk-sharing networks and the failure of payouts to match farmers’ losses, also called “basis risk.”

Supplemental irrigation, the application of additional water to otherwise rain-fed crops, is another potential tool for farmers to adapt to frequent drought. The real value of supplemental irrigation lies in its capacity to bridge dry spells when rainfall fails to provide essential moisture for crops. However, supplemental irrigation has not reached significant scale in most countries across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Neither index insurance nor supplemental irrigation on their own can fully address farmers’ vulnerability to drought. However, bundling the two together may combine the strengths of both technologies at the lowest cost. 

Research Design

This ALL-IN project, led by the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Ghana, leverages the Government of Ghana’s new flagship initiative “One Village, One Dam” (1V1D) to test an innovative bundling of index insurance and irrigation to increase productivity and resilience.

The project is being implemented as a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to measure the causal impacts of the index insurance and irrigation bundle. The team is measuring how the bundle affects demand for index insurance, the impacts of increasing the knowledge and adoption of supplemental irrigation, whether the bundle promotes the adoption of innovative agricultural technologies like improved seeds and fertilizer, and changes in agricultural productivity and livelihoods. 

This project includes a sample of 1,800 rural families from 180 villages in Ghana’s Northern Savannah agro-ecological zone. Individual villages are randomly sorted into three groups:

• Treatment 1: Supplemental irrigation, no drought index insurance 
• Treatment 2: Bundled supplemental irrigation with drought index insurance 
• Control group: No supplemental irrigation or drought index insurance 

The 1V1D initiative is providing access to supplemental irrigation for the staple crops maize and rice during rainy season and full irrigation for cash crops, livestock and households’ water needs during the dry season. The main source of water for these dams is rainfall. Farmers in treatment groups 1 and 2 are receiving training on drought management practices and the benefits of supplemental irrigation.

The research team is partnering with the Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool (GAIP) to design an index insurance contract tailored to small-scale farmers with access to small-scale supplemental irrigation. The index insurance is based on satellite measures of rainfall that can predict crop yields. The index insurance will also include a fail-safe audit rule in which farmers or communities can request a secondary measurement of losses in case the insurance fails to pay accurately. 
Women are included in the study in proportion to their high representation among small-scale farmers in Ghana, and the study measures impacts on women specifically. Men and women farmers are randomly assigned to each group in nearly equal proportions. 

Development Impact

This project aligns with USAID objectives in Ghana in terms of its targeted crops of maize and rice and its focus on the country’s Northern Savannah agro-ecological zone. The project integrates nutrition and gender issues throughout and emphasizes improving the food security and resilience of vulnerable households. The project complements existing initiatives supported by Feed the Future and USAID that address agricultural productivity, food security, nutrition and access to credit and markets. 

The project is also answering other questions that will guide its future scaling. In particular, the research team is developing the most cost-effective way to make the bundle of irrigation and insurance available and is assessing farmers’ willingness to pay for the product so as to ensure its commercial sustainability. 

[1] Emerick, K., et al. 2016. “Technological innovations, downside risk, and the modernization of agriculture.” American Economic Review.
[2] Karlan, D., et al. 2014. “Agricultural decisions after relaxing credit and risk constraints.” Quarterly Journal of Economics.
[3] Carter, M., et al. 2014. “Index-based Weather Insurance for Developing Countries: A Review of Evidence and a Set of Propositions for Up Scaling.” UC Davis Working Paper.

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement 7200AA19LE00004. The contents are the responsibility of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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Nutrition is critical for children’s growth and development in rural areas in Africa where families face the additional risks of climate-related shocks like drought. This Feed the Future ALL-IN project tests whether nutrition-related messages by mobile phone reinforce the impacts of earlier development programming on families’ nutrition and resilience. The project’s broader goals are to investigate whether communication can ensure the sustained resilience of rural households and whether the impacts of those communications are different for women and men. The study also analyzes the costs and benefits of nutrition-related messages to guide the future scaling up of such programs.   

Project Overview

Lead Principal Investigator: Robert Darko Osei, Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana

Project Partners: Ghana National LEAP Secretariat, Image-AD, Northwestern University

Development Innovation: Interactive voice response for nutrition messaging

Commodity: Multiple

Targeted Population: Households with children under 5 years old 

Country/Location: Northern Ghana

Timeline: 2022-2024

Funding: $449,833 (USAID)

The Challenge

In 2013, Ghana was the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to attain the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty.[1] However, poverty continues to be pervasive in Ghana’s rural areas. Further, Ghana has significant regional differences in poverty, with the northern, upper east and upper west regions reporting poverty rates exceeding half of the population.[2]

This persistent rural poverty has had dire consequences for families’ nutrition. In 2019, about one in five children under five years of age in Ghana were stunted, and one in ten were underweight.[3] In Ghana’s northern region, the prevalence of stunting in 2017 was 33 percent, almost twice the national average.[4] This high burden of malnutrition affects children’s education outcomes, cognitive development and physical growth.[5]  

The Government of Ghana has led major initiatives to address poverty. The Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) is a flagship poverty alleviation program launched in 2008 that provides cash and health insurance to extremely poor households. LEAP 1000, a 2014-2018 pilot extension of LEAP supported by UNICEF and USAID, provided regular cash transfers to pregnant women and mothers with infants under 15 months of age. In addition to supporting consumption, LEAP 1000 sought to reduce stunting and improve the welfare of young children and pregnant women. Importantly, LEAP 1000 participants also participated in an information campaign designed to improve their nutrition. 

Direct mobile phone communication through an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platform may help to expand the nutrition-related impacts of the LEAP 1000 project. While communication on its own will not improve nutrition and reduce poverty, understanding its contributions to these broader efforts can improve its impact in ongoing and future programming. 

Research Design

This Feed the Future ALL-IN research project, led by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana, Legon, seeks to understand whether digital communication can reinforce the LEAP 1000 project’s health and nutrition outcomes in Northern Ghana. The project specifically tests whether IVR messages can reinforce the program’s positive impacts. 

Participants in the study are households that took part in the LEAP and LEAP 1000 programs who have children under five years old with a primary caregiver and household head who own and use mobile phones. The total number of participants is estimated to be about 1,800 households. 
The study design measures the impacts of the IVR messages on LEAP 1000 and LEAP participants separately. For LEAP 1000 participants, the IVR messages may reinforce prior nutrition information. For LEAP participants, the messages may be a means of improving nutrition outcomes.

The team is working with Ghana-based IT firm Image-AD to send out nutrition-based messages by mobile phone to randomly selected households in the treatment groups. The content of the nutrition messages focus on dietary intake and diversity, a clean environment and safe child-feeding practices.

The study measures the impacts of the IVR messaging on household income, household expenditures on water, sanitation and hygiene, spending on food, and dietary diversity as well as children’s nutrition-related outcomes such as weight and height and incidence of illness. The team is also testing whether communication can sustain resilience in terms of nutritional outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Development Impact

The USAID Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) has an overall goal of supporting Ghana to increase self-reliance and a healthy and productive life for all citizens. Current inequalities biased against households in Northern Ghana require a systematic approach that takes these inequalities into account. This is particularly important as the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to linger on and exacerbate spatial inequality. 

Programming that strengthens household nutrition could lay the foundation for planning Ghana’s development agenda with poverty and inequality at the heart of such a plan. This ALL-IN project includes an evaluation of the cost effectiveness of using a mobile phone platform to speed up behavior change. Fortunately for Ghana, mobile phone penetration is very high. This makes reducing poverty and improving families’ nutrition by communicating to smallholder farmers with mobile phones a real possibility. 

[1] UNDP
[2] Ghana Statistical Service (GSS)
[3] UNICEF
[4] USAID
[5] Osei, R. D. et al. 2021. “Effects of Long-Term Malnutrition on Education Outcomes in Ghana: Evidence from a Panel Study.” The European Journal of Development Research.
 

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement 7200AA19LE00004. The contents are the responsibility of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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The effect climate change is having on livelihoods and food security is of great concern to many nations. In Ghana, high levels of poverty in the northern parts of the country are due in part to lower rainfall during its single rainy season. This new ALL-IN study measures the socio-economic impact of Ghana’s government policy initiative dubbed “One Village, One Dam” (1V1D) implemented in Northern Ghana since 2017. The results provide evidence on the most effective ways to ensure that national-scale investments in dams serving small-scale farming communities yield the greatest benefits for rural families.

Project Overview

Principal Investigators: Charles Amoatey, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA)
Bilal Siddiqi, Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA)

Project Partners: Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA), Ghana Ministry of Special Development Initiatives

Development Innovation: Small-scale irrigation

Commodity: Arable crops and livestock

Targeted Population: Smallholder farmers 

Country/Location: Northern Ghana

Timeline: 2021-2023

Funding: $379,215 (USAID)

The Challenge

Globally, the effects of climate change on livelihoods and food security is of great concern to many nations. In the agricultural sector, fluctuating and unreliable rainfall, reduction in rainy days, drought and flooding have affected crop yield and the rearing of livestock. A struggle for domestic use of water is often not spared, especially in the dry seasons.

In Northern Ghana, dams are a promising approach to secure a water supply for irrigation to increase agricultural productivity. The use of groundwater in the region for irrigation is currently very low, at only four percent,1 and has historically been tapped from shallow aquifers or alluvial fans. Government support for groundwater is very limited, which leaves groundwater for irrigation largely privately funded and beyond the means of smallholder farmers, particularly in the northern regions where poverty rates are highest in the country.

In 2017, the Government of Ghana launched its One Village, One Dam initiative (1V1D), which seeks to make irrigation accessible to small-scale farmers in Northern Ghana. This initiative is implemented in five regions of northern Ghana that have consistently been ranked by the Ghana Living Standards Survey as the poorest in the country. The project is envisaged to develop 570 small dams in various communities to support dry-season gardening and livestock rearing leading to enhanced food security, incomes and people’s wellbeing.

Research Design

An ALL-IN research team led from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) is collaborating with the Ministry of Special Development Initiative and the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA) to evaluate the 1V1D initiative and its impacts. The study uses a mixed-methods research approach that assesses 1V1D’s design and community contexts as well as a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to measure its actual impacts on rural families. 

The evaluation of 1V1D includes interviews, focus group discussions and detailed documentary analysis on the theory of change. These establish the mechanisms and contexts that may determine the program’s impacts in rural communities. 

The RCT selects similar households into two treatment groups and a control group to compare outcomes that include crop yields, livestock production, income and food security. Households in the control group live in communities that did not receive a dam, providing a comparison for households in communities that did. The three groups are:

• T1: Communities receive a dam, households receive no additional training
• T2: Communities receive a dam, households receive field-based trainings that include efficient use of irrigation, appropriate farming practices, livestock rearing and marketing of farm produce.
• Control: Communities do not receive a dam and households receive no training 

The research team is selecting households from 60 villages receiving the 1V1D initiative and another 60 from villages not receiving it for a total of 600 households across the T1 and T2 groups to compare with 600 households in the control group. Surveys with farmers take place after the dry/irrigation season ends.

Development Impact

This study builds evidence for selecting, designing and implementing policy to support small-scale farmers in Ghana. It aligns with Feed the Future and USAID efforts in Ghana with its focus on the northern region and on increasing productivity in arable crops and livestock as a means to reduce poverty and promote improved nutrition. 

The Government of Ghana is not only interested in knowing the effects of the 1V1D initiative on target groups but also the mechanisms behind how and why the policies work or fail for possible scale-up or cancellation. Since 2017, the Government of Ghana has focused on 33 priority projects guided by the National Policy Plan and 17 flagship programs. The Ghana Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation, which assumes an oversight responsibility on the implementation of 1V1D, has developed a results framework to guide their delivery. The Ministry also undertakes a rapid assessment of the programs to guide cabinet decisions. 

GIMPA has supported the Ministry in its oversight role since 2017, including the development of the National M&E Policy and the development of the Results Framework. This 1V1D evaluation expands this collaboration to include the Ministry of Special Development Initiatives which directly oversees the delivery of 1V1D. With the support of the Minister of M&E, evidence from this study will improve the delivery of 1V1D and many other government flagship programs.

[1] Martin N. 2006. “Development of a water balance for the Atankwidi catchment, West Africa – a case study of groundwater recharge in a semi-arid climate.” Ecology and Development Series, No. 41.

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement 7200AA19LE00004. The contents are the responsibility of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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Rural women in developing countries tend to be poorer than men, produce less from farming and are much more vulnerable to an increasing risk of climate change. In Uganda, new ALL-IN research is testing a comprehensive approach to supporting women to improve their on-farm productivity, increase their resilience to shocks and enhance their overall empowerment. This research builds evidence on what mix of interventions create the most opportunity for women to escape poverty and secure resilience to improve the well-being of their families and communities.

Project Overview

Lead Principal Investigator: Florence Kyoheirwe Muhanguzi, Makerere University

Project Partners: Uganda Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries; University of Florida

Development Innovation: Integrating farm inputs, training and community support to empower women smallholder farmers

Commodity: Arable crops and livestock

Targeted Population: Women smallholder farmers 

Country/Location: Uganda

Timeline: 2021-2024

Funding: $450,000 (USAID)

The Challenge

Women are critical to agriculture in Uganda, contributing about 90 percent of the nation’s food.[1] Women are also more vulnerable than men to agricultural shocks caused by disasters like drought and flood because the majority are poor, largely subsistence-oriented and depend on less rewarding farming practices to produce low-value crops. 

Women’s vulnerability to agricultural shocks is exacerbated by additional burdens imposed on them both in and outside of the home. Women have less decision-making power inside the home while carrying a heavy unpaid care workload. Women’s limited control over their land and even the proceeds from selling what they grow keep them from opportunities that include quality inputs and extension services, credit and even off-farm income.[2] 

As climate change increases farming risks, what interventions help women to adapt? A comprehensive approach focused on building women’s resilience and empowerment may be a viable way to enhance general household food security, better nutrition and reduced poverty.[3]

Research Design

This ALL-IN research project led by Makerere University in Uganda seeks to transform and improve women smallholders’ empowerment in agriculture and their resilience to agricultural shocks. The project employs a mixed methods approach that draws on expertise from economics, agriculture, social anthropology and gender studies. The project takes place in the Alebtong and Insingiro districts in Uganda, both of which have high levels of poverty, poor nutritional outcomes and a high risk of agricultural shocks.

The project begins with qualitative research with men and women farmers, community leaders, policy makers and technical staff to understand the local concepts of women’s empowerment and the agricultural shocks women face. The team is measuring women’s empowerment with pro-WEAI, which was developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) with support from USAID to standardize field research on women’s empowerment in agriculture while providing flexibility to adapt to local contexts. 

The team is also testing a suite of interventions that help women respond effectively to agricultural shocks. The interventions include (1) an input package of seed for stress-tolerant and nutrient-rich crop varieties and fertilizer made available via a revolving fund to enhance sustainability and (2) training on climate-smart agriculture technologies and practices, business skills and gender transformative approaches, all primarily targeted at women.

The interventions are implemented as a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to test their impacts on key outcomes that include household welfare, women’s empowerment and resilience to agricultural shocks. The research team has identified 48 savings/microfinance groups, from which ten women are selected at random to participate in one of five groups:

• T1: Input package and trainings 
• T2: Input package only
• T3: Trainings only
• Control: No interventions 

The study includes a total of 1,280 participants (640 women and 640 men). 

Development Impact

Climate change is having an indelible impact on poverty in Uganda, causing frequent and intensive weather extremes leading to droughts, flooding, landslides, hailstorms and erratic rainfall that have increased rural poverty from 23 percent in 2012 to 25 percent in 2017.[4] Improving agricultural productivity now is critical considering forecasts that poverty will increase even more due to the current COVID-19 pandemic which caused severe disruptions to rural livelihoods, especially among women. 

This project contributes directly to a number of USAID and Feed the Future objectives in Uganda. This includes strengthening and achieving a well-nourished population, understanding key drivers of vulnerability, increasing households’ capacity to manage risk and diversifying community and household assets. The project also maintains a strong focus on gender by seeking to empower women by increasing their access to financial resources, improved agricultural practices and reduced vulnerability to agricultural shocks.

National efforts have begun to focus on community-wide rural resilience and on women’s inclusion but separately.[5] This ALL-IN project integrates multiple approaches with a focus on improving women’s livelihoods as well as their empowerment. This research offers a window for policies that effectively address women’s vulnerability to agricultural shocks through interventions that will increase their agricultural productivity, help diversify their incomes and improve the wellbeing of their families.

[1] Feed the Future. 2015. 
[2] FAO. 2019. “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019. Safeguarding against economic slowdowns and downturns.”
[3] USAID. 2018. “Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS) Uganda Country Plan.”
[4] Uganda Bureau of Statistics. 2018. 
[5] Financial Sector Deepening. 2018. “FinScope Uganda: Topline findings report, Kampala.”

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement 7200AA19LE00004. The contents are the responsibility of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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