Portfolio Category: Past Projects

Status: Completed (March – June 2017)

Agri-Food Economics Africa was contracted by IFPRI in March 2017 to conduct a baseline survey for the project SATISFy (Satellite Technologies, Innovative and Smart Financing for Food Security).  The SATISFy project aims to increase the extent and inclusivity of access to rural credit by relaxing quantity and risk rationing constraints. In particular, the project has introduced risk contingent credit (RCC), a novel financial product that embeds an index insurance component within a credit product to alleviate the need for collateral that might otherwise constrain smallholder farmers’ access to formal financial services. The main objective of the project is to understand the impacts of RCC on farmers’ investments in agricultural production, both in absolute terms as well as relative to traditional credit products. The project is being implemented in Kenya by various partners including IFPRI, University of Greenwich, Cornell University and Equity Bank Kenya Limited.

The baseline household survey was undertaken from March 2017 to June 2017 targeting 1,170 farmers in 5 sub-Counties of Machakos County in Kenya. The data was collected electronically using CSPro. Agri-Food Economics Africa oversaw all activities of the baseline survey including preliminary planning, enumerator recruitment and training, selection of households into the project, electronic data collection using CSPro, data management and weekly as well as final reporting.

Status: Completed (December 2017 – July 2018)

Agri-Food Economics Africa was commissioned by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in December 2017 to conduct a study on assessing potential food system-based solutions to enhance food availability and access for improved complementary feeding for young children. The study focused on the arid and semi-arid land (ASAL) counties of Baringo, Tana River, Turkana and West Pokot in Kenya. The overall objective of this study was to assess potential food system approaches for ensuring sustained access and availability to appropriate complementary foods for young children in these counties. Thus the study set out to understand the seasonal availability and access of affordable nutritious foods in these counties, and additionally considered enablers for increased consumption and behavior change at the household level, including the role of various actors.

The study was mainly qualitative, relying on key informant interviews (KIIs) in the capital city as well as in the four study counties, and literature review. Agri-Food Economics Africa undertook 15 KIIs in the capital city and 85 KIIs in the study counties. The key informants targeted for interview were county officers’ in-charge of food system-related dockets and other actors implementing food security, agriculture, resilience/livelihood programs in these counties.

Status: Completed (May 2018 – August 2018)

Agri-Food Economics Africa was contracted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in May 2018 to conduct a follow-up survey for the project SATISFy (Satellite Technologies, Innovative and Smart Financing for Food Security).  The SATISFy project aims to increase the extent and inclusivity of access to rural credit by relaxing quantity and risk rationing constraints. In particular, the project has introduced risk contingent credit (RCC), a novel financial product that embeds an index insurance component within a credit product to alleviate the need for collateral that might otherwise constrain smallholder farmers’ access to formal financial services. The main objective of the project is to understand the impacts of RCC on farmers’ investments in agricultural production, both in absolute terms as well as relative to traditional credit products using Randomized Control Trials (RCTs). The project is being implemented in Kenya by various partners including IFPRI, University of Greenwich, Cornell University and Equity Bank Kenya Limited.

The survey targeted the same 1,170 households that were interviewed during the baseline survey in 2017, in 5 sub-Counties of Machakos County namely Matungulu, Kangundo, Kathiani, Mwala, and Yatta. The survey involved collection of household-level data and implementation of laboratory-in-field experiments. The data was collected electronically using SurveyCTO platform. Agri-Food Economics Africa worked with IFPRI to pretest and finalize the questionnaire, and train enumerators. All logistics, coordination and implementation of the survey were undertaken by Agri-Food Economics Africa. These included hiring of enumerators and supervisors, hire of fieldwork vehicles, and provision of tablets for electronic data collection. Agri-Food Economics Africa submitted the data and the final report in a timely manner as stipulated in the contract.

Status: Completed (December 2017 – October 2018)

Agri-Food Economics Africa was contracted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in December 2017 to undertake a study “Biotic and Abiotic stresses facing Kenya’s farming community” under the Stress Tolerance Maize for Africa (STMA) project.

The study’s aim is to assess the impact of various farmers’ stresses and the results will enable STMA understand biotic and abiotic stresses in smallholder maize producing households in Kenya, and how farmers prioritize them. This understanding is important in guiding research on the development of new technologies. Importance of stresses is likely to have changed with the arrival of new pest problems, in particular larger grain borer (LGB), maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease and the fall army worm (FAW).

The survey also collected information on the uptake of improved maize technologies relevant for STMA, in particular drought tolerant varieties, stemborer resistant varieties, striga tolerant and imazaphyr resistant (IR) varieties, and hermetic storage technologies (hermetic bags and metal silos).

The study was undertaken in 120 communities using Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) across maize-growing areas in 32 Counties in Kenya. The data was collected electronically using Survey CTO platform. Agri-Food Economics worked with CIMMYT to pretest and finalize the questionnaire, and finalize the study design. It recruited enumerators and field supervisors, trained them, designed SurveyCTO data collection forms, undertook the survey using its own tablets, and cleaned and labeled the data.  Agri-Food Economics Africa is also partnering with CIMMYT in analysis and writing.

Status: Completed (August 2019 – October 2019)

Agri-Food Economics Africa was contracted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in August 2019 to undertake a survey for the study “Assessing the capacities, strategies, and needs of agro-dealers to scale improved maize seed in Uganda” and support data collection for a similar survey in Tanzania.

The study aims to understand how interventions for seed systems development can better engage with agro-dealers for a more effective uptake of improved maize varieties. The study involves interviewing agro-dealers in various maize growing zones and support in data management. In the first part of this work, Agri-Food Economics Africa undertook a survey of agro-dealers in Uganda, covering the Eastern, Mid-Western, Northern and Central regions. A total of 233 agro-dealers were interviewed in 8 districts spread in these regions. The data was collected electronically using Survey CTO platform. Agri-Food Economics worked with CIMMYT to finalize the questionnaire and study design. It recruited enumerators and field supervisors, trained them, designed SurveyCTO data collection forms, undertook the survey using its own tablets, and cleaned and labeled the data.

In the second part of this work, Agri-Food Economics Africa supported data collection in Tanzania being responsible for finalizing the questionnaire, designing SurveyCTO data collection forms and cleaning the data.

Status: Completed (December 2018 – October 2019)

Agri-Food Economics Africa was contracted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in December 2018 to undertake a study “Assessing the capacities, strategies, and needs of agro-dealers to scale improved maize seed in Kenya” under the Stress Tolerance Maize for Africa (STMA) project.

The study aims to understand how interventions for seed systems development can better engage with agro-dealers for a more effective uptake of improved maize varieties. The study involves interviewing agro-dealers and farmers in various maize growing zones, data management, analysis and writing. A total of 80 agro-dealers and 550 farmers have already been interviewed as part of this study during the March-April 2019 planting season. Agri-Food Economics Africa is also partnering with CIMMYT in analysis and writing of journal papers from this work.