Impact of Improved Technology Package Adoption on Maize Yield Growth in Ethiopia: Conditional Differences in Differences Approach Application

Abstract

This study examines the impact of adoption of improved maize technology package (including improved maize varieties, fertilizer of any kind as well as row planting) on maize yield growth of Ethiopia at national level. In so doing, a balanced panel data set covering two time periods was used and propensity score matching in combination with a difference-in-differences estimator was employed to better match control and project units on preprogram observable characteristics and to control for certain types of unobserved variables which can be assumed to remain fixed over a shorter time series. It is found that that adoption of improved maize technology package had positive and significant impact on maize yield growth of Ethiopia at national level. Therefore, this study recommends to widely scale-up the efficient use of improved maize varieties in combination with other complementary inputs and agronomic practices to all maize producing farm households which obviously calls for embracing the enormous diversity of the production systems as well as a well-coordinated, effective as well as efficient effort of all of the relevant stakeholders of the agricultural sector of the country including farmers supported with a major recommitment to effective overall management of so many facets of the economic environment.

Keywords: Impact, Maize, Improved Varieties, Fertilizer, Row Planting, Ethiopia

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-23-01

Publication date: December 31^st 2020