About this grant

Grant-holding organisation: Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, University of Ghana Lead principal investigator: Robert Darko Osei (rdosei@yahoo.co.uk)Award: $466,099.36

Primary evaluation questions

1. What is the impact of aggregator capacity strengthening on farm- investment incentives, farm income and its variability?2. What is the impact of smallholder farmers’ training in post-harvest handling and quality management on the levels of post-harvest grain loss and value of marketed output?

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The impact of aggregation centres on smallholder farmers’ market power and incomes in MaliProgramme overview

Small-scale agriculture remains the primary economic livelihood activity for a majority of households in rural Sub-Saharan Africa, including Mali. The high incidence of rural poverty indicates that there are serious barriers that limit agricultural development, including defunct farmer organisations, limited access to agricultural inputs, limited access to credit, poor post-harvest management and underdeveloped markets.

In Sikasso, Mali’s largest grain-producing region, the Association Malienne d’Eveil au Développement Durable is implementing a programme funded by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. It aims to aggregate farmers around cooperatives and private service providers, who will provide production, post-harvest and marketing services.

Impact evaluation overview

This impact evaluation is funded as part of 3ie’s Agricultural Innovation Thematic Window. 3ie conducted a scoping exercise that identified existing evidence and where there are gaps in the evidence base. The analysis and consultations during the exercise identified the need for more evidence on the effectiveness of interventions in four areas: (1) interventions that promote communicating effectively with farmers; (2) ones that promote adopting more productive technologies; (3) ones creating markets, and (4) ones strengthening value chains. All funded studies in this thematic window focus on programmes in at least one of these four areas and address one or more associated priority questions, of which this study will address this one:

• What types of contractual arrangements increase smallholder farmers’ market power, food security, marketed surplus and net returns?

Impact evaluation grant summary

Timeline

Start: June 2014Baseline report: August 2015Draft final report: June 2017End: November 2017

The study will determine the impact of these interventions on smallholder farmers’ access to markets. Findings, if favourable, may be used to advocate for more structured markets. These markets create incentives for both short-term and long-term farm investments and increase agricultural productivity and farmer income. It can also potentially inform national agricultural policy addressing input and output market fragmentation through aggregation of services.

Methodology and identification strategy

The programme’s effects will be identified and measured using a phased-in randomised design, complemented by qualitative methods, such as interviews and focus group discussions with leaders of cooperatives, private aggregators and selected farmers in the intervention communities. The study will sample 1,800 farmers. A list of communities in each district covered by cooperatives and private aggregators in the Sikasso region will be obtained during the study.

Communities will be randomised into the following groups: (1) comparison communities; (2) communities that receive mobile voice message reminders about post-harvest handling and quality management; and (3) communities that receive mobile voice-messaging on bothpost-harvest handling and quality management, along with priceinformation.

Heterogeneity analysis

This programme does not intend to discuss or explain any form of heterogeneity in impact.

3ie is a member-based, international non-governmental organisation promoting evidence-informed development policies and programmes through high-quality and policy-relevant evidence. One of the ways that 3ie realises this commitment is by supporting and quality assuring impact evaluations, systematic reviews and replication studies of development interventions in low- and middle-income countries in high-priority sectors. 3ie is the global leader in funding and producing evidence on what works, for whom, why and at what cost. We believe that better evidence will help make development more effective in improving poor people’s lives.

3ie’s Agricultural Innovation Thematic Window is supported by the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and UK aid.

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TW4.1016August 2016