IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfpoli/v44y2014icp262-271.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impacts of hybrid maize seed on the welfare of farming households in Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Mathenge, Mary K.
  • Smale, Melinda
  • Olwande, John

Abstract

This paper explores the impacts of hybrid maize adoption on the welfare of farming households in Kenya. We use a four-year panel dataset to estimate the effects of hybrid seed use on four indicators of household welfare, namely, income, assets, inequality and poverty. Results show that use of hybrid seed not only contributes to higher annual income, but also to raising the value of assets, possibly reflecting longer-term welfare effects. Further, we find that use of hybrid seed reduces the depth of poverty, and that the amount planted reduces inequality. As expected, impacts differ between major and minor maize-growing areas of the country. Maize farmers who do not use hybrid seed are clearly disadvantaged. This calls for continued public and private investments in the infrastructure and policy process that supports a competitive, liberalized seed industry and improved access of smallholder farmers to well-adapted, affordable hybrids.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathenge, Mary K. & Smale, Melinda & Olwande, John, 2014. "The impacts of hybrid maize seed on the welfare of farming households in Kenya," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 262-271.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:44:y:2014:i:c:p:262-271
    DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2013.09.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919213001413
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.foodpol.2013.09.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Working Papers 834, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Tavneet Suri, 2011. "Selection and Comparative Advantage in Technology Adoption," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(1), pages 159-209, January.
    3. Gershon Feder & Roger Slade, 1984. "The Acquisition of Information and the Adoption of New Technology," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 66(3), pages 312-320.
    4. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-766, May.
    5. Chamberlain, Gary, 1984. "Panel data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1247-1318, Elsevier.
    6. Hugo De Groote & George Owuor & Cheryl Doss & James Ouma & Lutta Muhammad & K. Danda, 2005. "The Maize Green Revolution in Kenya Revisited," The Electronic Journal of Agricultural and Development Economics, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, vol. 2(1), pages 32-49.
    7. Smith, Richard J & Blundell, Richard W, 1986. "An Exogeneity Test for a Simultaneous Equation Tobit Model with an Application to Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 679-685, May.
    8. Foster, Andrew D & Rosenzweig, Mark R, 1995. "Learning by Doing and Learning from Others: Human Capital and Technical Change in Agriculture," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1176-1209, December.
    9. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    10. Angrist, Joshua D, 2001. "Estimations of Limited Dependent Variable Models with Dummy Endogenous Regressors: Simple Strategies for Empirical Practice," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(1), pages 2-16, January.
    11. Oded Stark & J. Taylor, 1989. "Relative deprivation and international migration oded stark," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 26(1), pages 1-14, February.
    12. Marenya, Paswel Phiri & Barrett, Christopher B., 2009. "The effect of soil quality on fertilizer use rates among smallholder farmers in western Kenya," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51671, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 69-85, Fall.
    14. Jones, Ashley D. & Dalton, Timothy J. & Smale, Melinda, 2012. "A Stochastic Production Function Analysis of Maize Hybrids and Yield Variability in Drought-Prone Areas of Kenya," Working Papers 202593, Egerton University, Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development.
    15. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    16. Paswel P. Marenya & Christopher B. Barrett, 2009. "Soil quality and fertilizer use rates among smallholder farmers in western Kenya," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(5), pages 561-572, September.
    17. Joshua Angrist & Alan Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Working Papers 834, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    18. Angrist, Joshua D, 2001. "Estimations of Limited Dependent Variable Models with Dummy Endogenous Regressors: Simple Strategies for Empirical Practice: Reply," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(1), pages 27-28, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mathenge, Mary K. & Smale, Melinda & Olwande, John, 2012. "The Impact of Maize Hybrids on Income, Poverty, and Inequality among Smallholder Farmers in Kenya," Food Security International Development Working Papers 146931, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    2. Martina Bozzola & Melinda Smale & Salvatore Di Falco, 2016. "Climate, Shocks, Weather and Maize Intensification Decisions in Rural Kenya," FOODSECURE Working papers 39, LEI Wageningen UR.
    3. Lahiri, Bidisha & Ali, Haider, 2022. "Inspections, informal payments and tax payments by firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA).
    4. Guilhem Bascle, 2008. "Controlling for endogeneity with instrumental variables in strategic management research," Post-Print hal-00576795, HAL.
    5. Hoang, Tuyen Thanh & Nguyen, Cuong Viet & Van Tran, Hoa Thi, 2019. "Are female CEOs more risk averse than male counterparts? Evidence from Vietnam," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 57-74.
    6. Long Thanh Giang & Cuong Viet Nguyen & Tuyen Quang Tran & Vu Thieu, 2017. "Does Firm Agglomeration Matter to Labor and Education of Local Children? Evidence in Vietnam," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 10(4), pages 1015-1041, December.
    7. Nguyen, Cuong, 2012. "Does Urbanization Help Poverty Reduction in Rural Areas?Evidence from a Developing Country," MPRA Paper 48660, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Mathenge, Mary K. & Smale, Melinda & Opiyo, Joseph, 2013. "Off-farm Work and Fertilizer Intensification among Smallholder Farmers in Kenya: A Cross-Crop Comparison," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150638, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Smale, Melinda & Mason, Nicole M., 2013. "Hybrid Seed, Income, and Inequality among Smallholder Maize Farmers in Zambia," Food Security Collaborative Working Papers 146929, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    10. Nguyen Viet Cuong, 2014. "Does Urbanization Help Poverty Reduction in Rural Areas? Evidence from a Developing Country," Working Papers 2014-178, Department of Research, Ipag Business School.
    11. Cuong Viet Nguyen & Thu Thi Le & Nguyen Hanh Nguyen, 2021. "The impact of cigarette prices on smoking participation and tobacco expenditure in Vietnam," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-20, December.
    12. Anderson, Brian S, 2018. "Endogeneity and Entrepreneurship Research," OSF Preprints 75tn8, Center for Open Science.
    13. Masakure, Oliver, 2016. "The effect of employee loyalty on wages," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 274-298.
    14. repec:osf:osfxxx:75tn8_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Tesfaye, Wondimagegn & Tirivayi, Nyasha, 2020. "Crop diversity, household welfare and consumption smoothing under risk: Evidence from rural Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    16. Huang, Qianqian & Jiang, Feng & Lie, Erik & Yang, Ke, 2014. "The role of investment banker directors in M&A," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 269-286.
    17. Faruque As Sunny & Linlin Fu & Md Sadique Rahman & Zuhui Huang, 2022. "Determinants and Impact of Solar Irrigation Facility (SIF) Adoption: A Case Study in Northern Bangladesh," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-17, March.
    18. Cuong Viet Nguyen, 2022. "The effect of preschool attendance on Children's health: Evidence from a lower middle‐income country," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(8), pages 1558-1589, August.
    19. Nguyen, Cuong Viet & Nguyen, Hoa Quynh, 2015. "Do internal and international remittances matter to health, education and labor of children and adolescents? The case of Vietnam," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 28-34.
    20. Mont, Daniel & Nguyen, Cuong, 2013. "Does Parental Disability Matter to Child Education? Evidence from Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 88-107.
    21. Chen, Sheng-Syan & Hsu, Ching-Yu & Huang, Chia-Wei, 2016. "The white squire defense: Evidence from private investments in public equity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 16-35.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:44:y:2014:i:c:p:262-271. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.