Abstract
This paper examines the gender differential impact of NERICA adoption on rice yield and farmers’ annual household income using data from 342 rice farmers from Benin. NERICA varieties have been one of the most significant advances in crop improvement in Africa. They have been developed through AfricaRice’s interspecific hybridization breeding program which won their creator Monty Jones the 2004 World Food Prize. They are widely believed to offer hope for Africa’s Green Revolution because of their ability to grow under multiple stresses as well as their high response rate to inorganic fertilizers and other inputs. This paper applies the counterfactual outcomes framework of modern evaluation theory to estimate the Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE) of NERICA adoption on farmers’ yield and income. The evidence from the results shows that NERICA adoption has a positive and significant impact on farmers’ yield and household per capita income. The impacts of NERICA adoption are not homogeneous across farmer gender and are higher for female farmers than male farmers. Women potential adopters of NERICA produce 866 kg more paddy per hectare and have an additional per capita household income of 43,715 FCFA (US$101) compared to men potential adopters who produce 392 kg more paddy per hectare and have an additional per capita household income of 11,027 FCFA (US$23) per capita. The findings suggest that targeting women with NERICA can increase rice productivity, total production and income significantly more than if the NERICA are targeted at men.
Published Version
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