Impact of Fertilizer on Maize Yield Growth in Ethiopia: The Implementation of the Difference-in-Differences Matching Estimator

Abstract

This study examines the national level impact of adoption of fertilizer (organic, inorganic or both) on maize yield growth in Ethiopia. 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 adoption of fertilizer had positive and significant impact on maize yield growth at national level. Therefore, this study recommends to widely scale-up fertilizer to all maize producing farm households, and this should be accompanied by increasing availability of affordable fertilizer for the smallholder farmers to enhance their livelihood.

Keywords: Impact, Maize, Fertilizer, Ethiopia

DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/11-21-05

Publication date: November 30^th 2020