Preferences for sustainable intensification: Do agricultural interventions matter? Plot-level evidence from Senegal

To what extent do agricultural support programs that promote modern intensification shape farmers’ incentives to adopt sustainable agricultural management practices? We answer this question by examining the effects of receiving input subsidies and agricultural extension services on Senegalese smallholder farmers’ preferences for crop diversification, crop rotation, rotational grazing, fallowing, and mulching crop residues. The empirical investigation is based on the 2020/2021 Annual Agricultural Survey (AAS) and uses two identification strategies: selection on observables and the Abadie-Imbens matching approach to account for differences in farmers’ socio-economic backgrounds and biophysical characteristics of plots and the likelihood of benefiting from input subsidies and agricultural extension services. We find heterogeneous responses to extension services and input subsidies. In particular, we find that receiving agricultural extension services is associated with a higher likelihood of adopting crop rotation, rotational grazing and fallow. On the other hand, the effect of receiving fertiliser subsidies is significantly negative for these three practices. The results also indicate that receiving extension services is associated with a lower likelihood of adopting crop diversification, and receiving seed subsidies is associated with a higher likelihood of mulching crop residues. As international research and development organizations consider sustainable intensification as a means to effectively address soil degradation and achieve greater agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa, our findings call for the design of agricultural policies to support smallholder agriculture that take into account unintended consequences in terms of disincentives for the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices.