Improved agricultural input delivery systems for enhancing technology adoption: evidence from a field experiment in Ethiopia

Abstract

In this study, we test the hypothesis that small-scale testing can reduce the risk and uncertainty of trying new technologies. We conducted a field experiment, in a cluster randomised control trial setting, to examine whether the availability of divisible packages of seeds influences smallholder farmers’ decisions to try a new wheat variety. Our results show that the adoption of the newly introduced wheat variety was higher in the villages where small seed packages were introduced. We find that smallholder farmers tend to experiment on the newly introduced variety on their farmland and are less likely to adopt the new variety as a coping mechanism for risk exposure at the stage of experimentation. The results from treatment heterogeneity reveal that supplying seed in small bags had differential causal effects on individual farmers. The intervention which made small seed bags available impacted relatively younger and poorer farmers the most. This finding provides an insight into the significance of seed delivery in small bags to improve the use of seeds of new varieties by smallholders