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Do beliefs about agricultural inputs counterfeiting correspond with actual rates of counterfeiting? Evidence from Uganda:

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  • Ashour, Maha
  • Billings, Lucy
  • Gilligan, Daniel
  • Hoel, Jessica B.
  • Karachiwalla, Naureen

Abstract

Adoption of productivity- and income-enhancing agricultural technologies is conspicuously low in Africa south of the Sahara. Farmers’ beliefs regarding the authenticity of agricultural inputs are important for explaining technology adoption: if farmers do not believe that inputs are genuine, they are unlikely to invest in them. The degree of alignment between beliefs about and actual counterfeiting can help explain both the social costs of the “lemons†problem, and low rates of adoption. This is the first paper to explore whether farmer beliefs regarding counterfeiting align with actual rates of counterfeiting, and we do so across a very large geographic area serving tens of thousands of farmers in Uganda using a more precise measure of counterfeiting than many previous studies. We examine the relationship between beliefs and counterfeiting using quantitative measures of farmer beliefs regarding the authenticity of herbicide in their local market as well as a large random sample of laboratory-tested herbicide samples to measure counterfeiting rates in local markets. We report evidence of considerable counterfeiting of herbicides in local markets, with nearly one in three bottles containing less than 75 percent of the labeled concentration of active ingredient. We find evidence that farmers’ beliefs regarding the extent of counterfeiting of herbicide are significantly associated with measures of the actual prevalence of counterfeiting in local markets. These results indicate that farmers are at least partly informed about the “market for lemons†problem in local input markets. However, the results also suggest that although better informed farmers imply a lower social cost of counterfeiting, the high rate of counterfeiting and the relative accuracy of farmer information contributes to low adoption of agricultural inputs in Africa.

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  • Ashour, Maha & Billings, Lucy & Gilligan, Daniel & Hoel, Jessica B. & Karachiwalla, Naureen, 2016. "Do beliefs about agricultural inputs counterfeiting correspond with actual rates of counterfeiting? Evidence from Uganda:," IFPRI discussion papers 1552, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1552
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    Cited by:

    1. Barriga, Alicia & Fiala, Nathan, 2018. "The supply chain for seed in Uganda: Where does it all go wrong?," Working Paper series 290139, University of Connecticut, Charles J. Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy.
    2. De Brauw, Alan D. & Kramer, Berber, 2018. "Improving farmer trust and seller reciprocity in agricultural input markets: A lab-in-the-field experiment in Bangladesh," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274139, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Giroux, Stacey & Kaminski, Patrick & Waldman, Kurt & Blekking, Jordan & Evans, Tom & Caylor, Kelly K., 2023. "Smallholder social networks: Advice seeking and adaptation in rural Kenya," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    4. Wollburg, Philip & Tiberti, Marco & Zezza, Alberto, 2021. "Recall length and measurement error in agricultural surveys," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    5. Steven Haggblade & Bart Minten & Carl Pray & Thomas Reardon & David Zilberman, 2017. "The Herbicide Revolution in Developing Countries: Patterns, Causes, and Implications," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 29(3), pages 533-559, July.
    6. Assima, Amidou & Haggblade, Steven & Smale, Melinda, 2017. "Counterfeit Herbicides And Farm Productivity In Mali: A Multivalued Treatment Approach," Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research Papers 259563, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security (FSP).
    7. Ruth Hill & Carolina Mejia-Mantilla & Kathryn Vasilaky, 2021. "Is the Price Right? Returns to Input Adoption in Uganda," Working Papers 2105, California Polytechnic State University, Department of Economics.
    8. Bequet, Ludovic, 2020. "Biotech Crops, Input Use and Landslides Case Study of Herbicide Tolerant Corn in the Philippine Highlands," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    9. Bequet, Ludovic, 2020. "Biotech Crops, Input Use and Landslides: The case of Genetically Modified Corn in the Philippine Highlands," MPRA Paper 98225, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Mastewal Yami & Piet Asten, 2018. "Relevance of informal institutions for achieving sustainable crop intensification in Uganda," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(1), pages 141-150, February.

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    social costs; maize; markets; seeds;
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