Junior Farmer Field Schools, Agricultural Knowledge and Spillover Effects: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Northern Uganda

Abstract

We analyse the impact of a junior farmer field school (JFFS) project in Northern Uganda on students’ agricultural knowledge and practices. Assuming that children are induced to transmit their newly acquired knowledge to their parents and guardians, we also test for the presence of spillover effects at household level. The empirical analysis is based on two sources of panel data: a household survey and a dataset containing results of a test on agricultural knowledge administered to treated and control students before and after the program by the project’s staff. We use matching difference-in-differences estimators, comparing the key outcomes across matched samples of treated and non-treated groups before and after the project intervention. We find that the program had positive effects on students’ agricultural knowledge and adoption of good practices and that it produced some spillover effects in terms of improvements of household agricultural knowledge and food security. However, we find no impact on the propensity to introduce new agricultural good practices and on household agricultural production. Overall, our results point to the importance of adapting the basic principles of farmer field schools to children through junior farmer field schools, as they could improve short and long-term food security and well-being of both children and their households.