Papers and Presentations

It is widely acknowledged that unmitigated risks provide a disincentive for otherwise optimal investments in modern farm inputs. This study assesses both the demand for and the effectiveness of an innovative index insurance product designed to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh manage risk to crop yields and the increased production costs associated with drought.

The research team estimates the general-equilibrium labor market effects of a large-scale randomized intervention designed and markets a rainfall index insurance product across three states in India.  Marketing agricultural insurance to both cultivators and to agricultural wage laborers allows the team to test a general-equilibrium model of wage determination in settings where households supplying labor and households hiring labor face weather risk.

This study provides experimental tests of the effects of program phase-out in the context of a large-scale agricultural input subsidy and extension program operated by the NGO BRAC to increase the use of improved seed varieties and basic farming practices among women smallholders in Uganda.

This presentation was by Maria Rarieya from the International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED) on May 24, 2017 describing the benefits of using index-based insurance over costly traditional claims-based insurance.

While index insurance offers a compelling solution to the problem of covariant risk among smallholder farmers in developing countries, most weather based contracts suffer from poor quality due to a low correlation between the index and farmer losses. This paper proposes and analyzes an alternative index insurance contract, which combines a satellite based index with the potential for a second-stage audit.

This presentation, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya on February 8, 2017, describes the high variation in soils and inputs for smallholder maize farmers in Kenya's western mid-altitude regions.

This presentation took place at Nairobi, Kenya on February 8, 2017, and describes how CIMMYT research on hybrid adoption in Kenya distinguishes maize breeding at targeted high elevations.

This presentation took place in Nairobi, Kenya on February 8, 2017, and describes how technology bundles and different soil technologies interact and complement each other.

This presentation took place in Nairobi, Kenya on February 8, 2017 and seeks to analyze the impacts of Western Seed Company's (WSC) hybrid maize program on the welfare of smallholder farmers in Kenya's mid-altitude regions.

To cope with shocks, poor households with inadequate access to financial markets can sell assets to smooth consumption and ,or reduce consumption to protect assets. Utilizing data from an RCT in Kenya, this paper estimates that on average an innovative microinsurance scheme reduces both forms of costly coping.