The Impact of Farmer Field School Training on Net Crop Income: Evidence from Smallholder Maize Farmers in Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study examines the impact of Farmer Field School (FFS) training program on the net crop income of the smallholder farmers. The FFS program was sponsored by the Ethiopian government and launched in 2010. The study aims to compare the impact of the training on net crop income of those FFS graduate and non-FFS graduate maize farmers in Oromia, Ethiopia. For this, panel data were collected in two rounds from 446 randomly selected households of three districts consisting of 218 FFS graduate farmers and 228 non-FFS graduate farmers. The analytical procedure has involved three stages: in the first stage, descriptive analyses were used to detect existence of difference in the outcome indicators between the two farmer groups. In the second stage, we have applied a semi-parametric impact evaluation method of propensity score matching with several matching algorithms. In the third stage, we have used Difference-in-Difference as robustness check in detecting causality between program intervention and the change in outcome indicators. The result of both PSM and DID estimates shows that net crop income of the FFS graduate farmers was not statistically different from those of non FFS graduates. Accordingly, a number of policy recommendations were also suggested.

Keywords: impact evaluation, accounting income, economic income, propensity score matching, difference in difference