Assessing the impact of integrated pest management (IPM) technology for mango fruit fly control on food security among smallholders in Machakos County, Kenya

Abstract

Adoption and extensive use of agricultural innovations is seen as a key avenue for poverty reduction and improved food and nutritional security in developing countries. This paper evaluated the impact of IPM strategy for mango fruit flies suppression on food security with the help of a two-wave panel household survey data collected in Machakos County in Kenya. Using a randomly selected sample of 600, a difference in difference was fitted to the data in order to assess the impact of IPM on food security. The results showed that on average, both IPM participants and non-participants were food secure as measured by per capita calorie intake and Household Dietary Diversity Index (HDDI). The difference in difference estimates indicated that fruit fly IPM had a positive impact on per capita calorie intake but no significant effect on HDDI. Other factors that had an effect on per capita calorie include level of farm income, access to extension services, wealth category and distance to agricultural input market and household size. Our study recommends wider dissemination and upscaling of the fruit fly IPM strategy to facilitate broader impacts on household-level food security.