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Trial Status
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in_development
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on_going
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Abstract
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Before
The primary objective of the study is to generate evidence on the impact of the use of the new pod-borer resistant (PBR) cowpea variety in Nigeria and its consequential effects on a variety of economic and food security conditions, including household and farm impacts and associated value chain effects. This study will evaluate key outcomes related to changes in cowpea yields and productivity. To achieve this objective, the study will use a cluster randomized controlled trial (c-RCT) to quantify the overall and relative impacts of the incremental treatment arms of the intervention. The c-RCT will use an encouragement design and will have two treatment arms: PBR cowpea adoption (T1), PBR cowpea adoption plus inputs (T2), and a control arm of conventional cowpea adoption plus inputs (C). The study will collect data from baseline, midline, and end-line surveys of all groups and will use mean differences and regression analysis to determine causal impacts of interventions. In addition to the c-RCT, the evaluation will use qualitative methods to collect and analyze information through key informant interviews and focus group discussions. A related value chain component will identify and describe value chain aspects of PBR cowpea use in Nigeria, including the identification of potential issues that may affect PBR cowpea adoption in Nigeria, such as factors which may enhance or hinder the functioning of the PBR cowpea value chain.
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After
In 2019, Nigeria approved the commercial release of a transgenic pod-borer insect-resistant (PBR) cowpea variety. The new variety is expected to generate yield gains of at least 20 percent and can reduce the costs of and exposure to pesticide applications, with particular benefit to female-headed households that represent a relatively large share of households engaged in cowpea production. However, the dissemination of the PBR variety is still in its early stages, such that awareness and adoption are still limited. The primary objective of the study is to estimate the impact of PBR cowpea on key productivity, income, environmental, and social outcomes at the household and farm levels in Nigeria’s main cowpea-producing regions. The study will use a cluster randomized controlled trial (c-RCT) with an encouragement design highlighted by two treatment arms. The evaluation will randomly select communities who receive PBR cowpea seed packages. There will be two treatment groups: Treatment 1 (T1) will receive PBR cowpea plus fertilizer and pesticide for 2 kg of PBR cowpea package; and treatment 2 (T2) will receive only 2 kg of PBR cowpea package. The control group (C) will receive conventional cowpea seed packages. The study will collect and analyze data from baseline, midline, and endline surveys of treatment and control farmers to estimate the causal impacts of the intervention on PBR cowpea adoption, yields, returns, pesticide use, refugia use, and other outcomes of interest. Additional analysis on the underlying mechanisms will be conducted with the help of qualitative data obtained from key informant interviews and focus group discussions with farmers, extension agents, market actors, and other stakeholders in the cowpea value chain. Findings will be used to inform an analysis of the cowpea value chain in Nigeria and the potential opportunities and constraints that may influence PBR cowpea adoption, production, and market sales.
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Last Published
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March 02, 2023 03:06 PM
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February 16, 2024 09:08 AM
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Intervention (Public)
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Before
The intervention of interest is the introduction of the PBR cowpea variety SAMPEA-20T developed by the USAID-funded “Feed the Future Innovative Maize and Cowpea Technologies to Increase Food and Nutrition Security in Africa, PBR cowpea Sub-activity (2020-25)”. This sub-activity, implemented by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) and partners, has entered the commercial release stage in Nigeria, with future releases expected in Ghana and Burkina Faso. The overall, expected outcome for this sub-activity in Nigeria is that PBR cowpea will be adopted by 25% of cowpea producers, generating yield gains of at least 20% for adopting farmers during the lifespan of the project (USAID 2021, 4). The Impact Evaluation (IE) will generate evidence regarding household and farm impacts of PBR cowpea adoption, and value chain effects from the commercial release and adoption of PBR cowpea in Nigeria. Other activities under this with the program improved seed delivery systems, development of profitable seed companies, sustainable BPR cowpea production system, increased confidence in the tools of modern biotechnology, among others – are generally outside the scope of the proposed IE. On a broader level, this IE will provide quantitative and qualitative data and analyses to assess the success and limitations of the “USAID development strategy and partner interventions supporting insect resistant variety release and commercialization, USAID Agricultural Biotechnology Program, and Global Food Security Strategy goals, and inform Feed the Future programming for better results” (USAID 2021, 1).
The primary objective of this evaluation is to generate evidence of the impact of the newly introduced PBR cowpea on cowpea yield and productivity. We expect to evaluate this impact under somewhat optimized production conditions for a PBR cowpea variety. The optimized conditions include establishing refugia, providing product information support, input use, etc.) that are standardized between experimental and control group to incentivize adoption at levels needed to support a c-RCT approach. While our research design will allow us to quantify the overall and relative impacts of the incremental treatment arms of the intervention, it will also facilitate further heterogeneity analyses on potential differential impacts across groups of individuals. Identifying the relative, heterogeneous and dynamic impacts of these interventions is crucial to designing cost-effective and scalable approaches to address gender gaps in PBR cowpea agricultural productivity in Nigeria.
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After
The study uses an encouragement design in a cluster randomized controlled trial (c-RCT) combined with qualitative research to estimate the impact of PBR cowpea on key productivity, income, environmental, health, and social outcomes at the household and farm levels in Nigeria’s main cowpea-producing regions. The study will be conducted within randomly selected communities located in Local Government Areas (LGAs, or sub-state administrative units that are similar to districts or counties) in the two main cowpea-cultivating states of Nigeria. The intervention will be conducted during a single growing season in 2023.
Participants in selected communities will be randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups or the control group. There will be two treatment groups: Treatment 1 (T1) will receive PBR cowpea plus fertilizer and pesticide for 2 kg of PBR cowpea package; and treatment 2 (T2) will receive only 2 kg of PBR cowpea package. The control group (C) will receive conventional cowpea seed packages. This encouragement design will estimate the impact of PBR cowpea under somewhat optimal conditions, i.e., conditions that farmers may not necessarily face in the future when markets and services for PBR cowpea seed distribution, information provision, and complementary inputs expand in the future. These optimal conditions include providing farmers with cowpea seed (PBR cowpea seed for treatment group farmers, and non-PBR cowpea seed for control group farmers), information on cowpea cultivation and management (including the planting of refugia to discourage rapid emergence of resistance to the PBR trait), and complementary inputs (primarily fertilizer and pesticides). This is deemed necessary for the evaluation because the first PBR cowpea variety was released in Nigeria only in 2019 and promotion efforts are still at a very nascent stage, implying that most farmers are generally not yet aware of or familiar with the variety. These optimal conditions are standardized between treatment and control groups to incentivize uptake at levels and rates required to minimally detect the effects of the intervention.
While our research design will allow us to quantify the overall and relative impacts of the incremental treatment arms of the intervention, it will also facilitate further heterogeneity analyses on potential differential impacts across groups of individuals by gender and education. Identifying the relative, heterogeneous and impacts of these interventions is crucial to designing cost-effective and scalable approaches to address gender gaps in PBR cowpea agricultural productivity in Nigeria.
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
1. Cowpea yield
2. Cowpea productivity
3. Pesticides use and costs
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After
1. Cowpea productivity
2. Cowpea profitability
3. Pesticide use
4. Health outcomes related to pesticide use
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Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
1. Cowpea yield, which will be measured based on total cowpea production, kg per hectare
2. Cowpea productivity, which will be based on cowpea net income (gross revenue minus costs of production) per hectare.
3. Pesticides use and costs, which will be measured based on pesticide use, kg and costs of pesticide used per hectare.
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After
1. Cowpea productivity: Cowpea yield (kg/ha), production index
2. Cowpea profitability: Gross revenue from cowpea output minus costs of cowpea production (NGN/ha; production cost/revenue indices)
3. Pesticide use and costs: measured in terms of number and type of pesticide products applied; labor-days used in pesticide application (days/household); quantity of pesticides applied (kg/ha or l/ha); and costs of pesticide use (NGN/ha)
4. Health care use and costs: visits to health facilities for symptoms related to pesticide exposure (no./person); cost of health services related to pesticide exposure symptoms (NGN/person); number of days lost due to pesticide exposure symptoms or accessing health care services (days/person); health care use and cost index
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Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
Our experimental design will combine c-RCT and qualitative approaches in selected communities in Adamawa and Kwara states.
Random Assignment:
A c-RCT is a field experiment in which clusters of farmers (communities) rather than farmers are randomly allocated to intervention groups. A key property of c-RCT is that inferences are intended to apply at the farmer (individual) level, while randomization is at the cluster or group level. Thus, the unit of randomization (community) is different from the unit of analysis (farmer). The intervention will follow a clustered randomized approach. The randomization takes place at the community level while selection of eligible households in each community is performed by community-based organizations operating in each community. LGAs and Communities will be randomly assigned into three groups/arms, based on the type of treatment and benefit they receive. The c-RCT will have two treatment arms, T1and T2 and a control group C:
• T1: will receive PBR cowpea (Sampea 20-T),
• T2: will receive PBR cowpea (Sampea 20-T) plus inputs.
• C: will receive conventional cowpea seed
Sampling
We will use a multistage sampling procedure to select the states, LGAs, communities and households included in the survey. In the first stage, we purposively select Adamawa and Kwara state in North-East of Nigeria. Both states are among the top cowpea-producing states in Nigeria and are states that also have a relatively high share of female-headed households engaged in cowpea production. No bias will be introduced by targeting these states with high proportion of females, because we expect randomization to even out any differences between treated and control groups. In other words, similar proportions of female-headed households in both treated and control group. We also consider the overall security situation in the states compared with some of the other major cowpea producing states. Adamawa and Kwara provide an interesting case study to analyse the impact of PBR cowpea on cowpea yield, productivity, and costs of cowpea production. Nevertheless, it is important to note that although the proposed study sites in Adamawa and Kwara are currently safe for field work, the security situation has deteriorated in many parts of Nigeria recently. If this trend continues our ability to conduct field work could be subject to some level of uncertainty.
The second stage involves the purposive selection of four LGAs from 25 LGAs of Adamawa state and four LGAs from 16 LGAs of Kwara state. Those eight LGAs from both states are chosen because there is no expected PBR cowpea penetration in these areas by the time of the intervention. The four selected LGAs in each state will be similar in terms of several important contextual factors (size, socioeconomic and agroclimatic conditions, and road and market access). From the eight LGAs, we will select 240 communities that are also similar in terms of the contextual factors, with 80 communities for the control group and the remaining 160 communities for the treatment groups. Within each community, we then list all households, from which we will randomly select 5 cowpea farmers to participate in the study, including from the control communities, for the baseline and end line surveys.
The second stage randomization will include selecting farmers randomly for PBR cowpea interventions within each of the 160 treatment communities from our study sites in Adamawa and Kwara states, where cowpea is an important crop. There are two cowpea cropping seasons: wet season and dry season. For this analysis, we will use the wet crop season. It is the main cowpea-growing season and runs from approximately July to October in the Northern Guinea Savanna agro-ecological zone, where Adamawa and Kwara are predominantly located. The intervention will take place before the beginning of the wet season of 2023.
Treatment Effects
We will evaluate the effectiveness of PBR cowpea adoption by comparing average household-level yield between T1 and C. We will also evaluate the incremental effect of interventions by comparing the average household-level yield between T1 and T2. This will give us the average treatment effect for incremental interventions. Randomization solves the problem of selection bias because households in treatment groups and control group are drawn randomly from the same underlying population; therefore, the average characteristics of these groups do not systematically vary, and any differences observed in the outcomes of interest can therefore be attributed to the interventions. To further minimize the possibility that our study design would be compromised (e.g., units selected for treatment may not, in fact, receive the treatment, or may not receive it in the fashion that is intended by the intervention), we will assign a field team (consisting of research assistants and extension agents) that will regularly visit study sites, engage with the local implementing staff, monitor progress, and report back to the evaluation team.
Data Collection
To exploit power gains from repeated observations, we will collect three rounds of data at baseline, midline and endline (e.g., McKenzie, 2012). We will collect baseline survey prior to the experiment’s rollout to investigate balance. Given that agricultural production depends on many exogenous and largely unobservable factors, such as weather, disease, pathogen and pest pressure and others, the baseline survey enables us to average out the noise in measuring yields, productivity, and costs of agricultural production, generating estimates less vulnerable to bias that might arise due to unusual conditions for all subjects during the experimental period (McKenzie, 2012; Rosenzweig and Udry, 2020). The baseline data will improve the power to estimate treatment effects, such as for examining treatment heterogeneity (McKenzie, 2012).
The choice of variables for the baseline survey is based on those used by similar studies in their orthogonality tests. In particular, we will look at variables used in studies that investigate the adoption of yield-improving technologies and practices using RCTs (Duflo, et al., 2011; Karlan et al., 2014; Ashraf, et al., 2009; Bulte et al., 2014). We will collect household information which consist of 12 modules. We will collect household characteristics such as household size, age, education level of household head, and agricultural assets, as well as more specific information related to cowpea farming, such as yield and productivity change in the last wet season, and distance to the nearest agro-input shop and road, access to extension agent and service about cowpea production and varieties, and households input use. The baseline data will improve the power to estimate treatment effects, such as for examining treatment heterogeneity (McKenzie, 2012). We will conduct the midline survey in 2024 one year after experiment’s rollout and the above interventions. An endline survey will re-survey the same households one year later after the midline to measure impacts of the long-term impact of the of PBR cowpea adoption and the change in the adoption behaviour of farmers. Given that our sample households are PBR beneficiaries or potential beneficiaries, we anticipate that attrition rate will be low or at least not systematic. In the endline survey, we will also have a module intended to collect data on unintended (positive and negative) consequences of the adoption of PBR cowpea (e.g., a decrease in number of insects that affect cowpea in the community).
Spillover effects
Finally, we will use statistical analysis to account for other important but less critical limitations of the experimental approach. One such example is related to spillover effects whereby untreated areas may have profited also from the intervention. The existence of spillovers can lead to underestimation of the treatment effect. Randomizing at the community level, rather than at the farmer level, allows the evaluation to account for spillover effects. To further account the spillover effects on our analysis, we will also expand the sample (200) to cover non-treatment households in treatment communities. This will provide useful information on channels and speed of spillover and diffusion of PBR variety. We will compare PBR cowpea adoption among control households (control households within a treatment one communities) versus control households (control households in a control communities).
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After
1. Overview
The study uses an encouragement design in a cluster randomized controlled trial (c-RCT) combined with qualitative research to estimate the impact of PBR cowpea on key productivity, income, environmental, health, and social outcomes at the household and farm levels in two of Nigeria’s main cowpea-producing regions (Adamawa and Kwara states). In this study, the unit of randomization is a community in a Local Government Area (LGAs or sub-state administrative units that is similar to districts or counties) and the unit of analysis is the farm-household.
LGAs will be randomly assigned to one of the three treatment or control groups as detailed below:
• Treatment Group 1 (T1) will receive PBR cowpea seed, associated information on its cultivation and management, and complementary inputs.
• Treatment Group 2 (T2) will receive PBR cowpea seed and associated information on its cultivation and management.
• Control Group (C) will receive conventional (non-PBR) cowpea seed, associated information on cultivation and management, and complementary inputs.
2. Sampling
The study uses a multistage sampling procedure to select the states, LGAs, communities and households included in the study. In the first stage, we purposively select Adamawa and Kwara state in North-East of Nigeria. Both states are among the top cowpea-producing states in Nigeria. Moreover, both states provide acceptable conditions to research because they currently enjoy a relatively stable security situation when compared to other major cowpea-producing states in Nigeria.
The second sampling stage involves the purposive selection of four LGAs from 25 LGAs of Adamawa state and four LGAs from the 16 LGAs of Kwara state. These eight LGAs from both states were chosen because there is no PBR cowpea penetration in these areas, and it is expected to remain unchanged by the time of the intervention. The four selected LGAs in each state are similar across important contextual factors including size, socioeconomic and agroclimatic conditions, and road and market access. From the eight LGAs, we select 240 communities that are also similar across contextual factors, with eighty communities for the control group and the remaining 160 communities for the treatment groups. Within each community, we then list all households, from which we randomly selected five cowpea farmers to participate in the study, including from the control communities, for the baseline and end line surveys. We estimate the sample size of 400 farm households for the treatment group 1, with 400 farm households for the treatment group 2, and with 400 farm households for the control group. To account for the attrition rate, we increased the sample size by 200 households. As all communities (treatments and control groups) are selected randomly, adding 200 households to either group has no effect. Thus, we added 200 households from communities in treatment 2 to our sample. Within each community, we then list all households that cultivate cowpea and randomly select 5 cowpea farming households to participate in baseline, midline, and endline survey rounds.
To minimize the possibility that our study design is compromised during the intervention rollout (e.g., units selected for treatment may not, in fact, receive the treatment, or may not receive it in the fashion that was intended by the intervention), a field team comprised of research assistants and extension agents will regularly visit the study sites, engage with the local staff of the study’s implementing partner, monitor progress, and report back to the evaluation team. To assist farmers in following the recommended PBR cowpea practices, dedicated extension agents will be contracted. The timely application of insecticides will require not only supervision but also training for safe handling and application.
The evaluation team has been working with technology developers, the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) and its partners (including private local seed companies) to ensure access to necessary data and cooperation for the evaluation team, while maintaining the independence of the evaluation team. We have closely collaborated and gathered inputs from a diverse set of stakeholders, including USAID, the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR, Zaria), the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) Nigeria Chapter, the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS), the Adamawa and Kwara state ministries of agriculture, extension officers, and the seed companies operating in the project study area.
3. Timing and duration
In the Northern Guinea Savanna agro-ecological zones of Adamawa and Kwara states, which is where the study will be implemented, there are two cowpea cropping seasons: wet season, which runs from August to December and dry season, which runs from February to July. This study will be implemented during the wet crop season in late 2023, with the rollout of the intervention beginning just prior to the season.
4. Treatment Effects
The study’s main outcome of interest—the effect of the pod borer-resistance trait on cowpea productivity and profitability—will be estimated by comparing average yields (kg/ha) and profits (NGN/ha)—between T2 and C. Additional outcomes include the incremental effect of providing treated farmers with an input package, which will be estimated by comparing the average household-level yield between T1 and T2. The additional outcomes described earlier (awareness, uptake, adoption, productivity, profitability, pesticide use and costs, health care use and costs, consumption, and marketing and commercialization) will be estimated to evaluate the study’s underlying theory of change, impact pathways, and mechanisms behind the observed effects. This will be supplemented with qualitative research conducted in the study area and within the study communities.
5. Data Collection
The unpredictability inherent in rainfed smallholder agriculture, including factors like pest and disease pressures, temperature and precipitation fluctuations, and volatile input and commodity prices, often results in significant year-to-year variations in yields and prices. Consequently, outcomes such as yields and profits tend to exhibit moderate to low levels of autocorrelation.
Additionally, the trial conducted in a small plot area using two kilograms of cowpea seeds and the comparison between baseline and midline surveys may not be suitable for our analysis. Nevertheless, the baseline survey provided an opportunity to average out noise when measuring time-invariant characteristics, generate a detailed descriptive analysis of the study site, context, and sample, and ensure that randomization was implemented according to the study protocol and that the sample is appropriately balanced.
The choice of variables for the baseline survey is based on those used by similar studies in their orthogonality tests. In particular, the study will collect data on variables that are commonly considered in prior studies that investigate the adoption of yield-improving and damage-abating agricultural technologies and practices using both RCTs and non-experimental studies (Duflo, et al., 2011; Karlan et al., 2014; Ashraf, et al., 2009; Bulte et al., 2014). The survey will collect data from the sampled households with 12 modules arrayed in a survey instrument based on computer-assisted personal interviewing. Modules will cover household demographics (household size, age, education of household members), agricultural and non-agricultural assets, access to markets and public services (distance to the nearest agro-input shop and road, access to extension services). In addition, detailed information will be collected on household cowpea cultivation (input use and management practices), consumption, and marketing, as well as health symptoms and care.
The midline survey will re-survey the same sampled households in 2024, approximately one year after intervention rollout, and will feature similar modules, with an emphasis on cowpea cultivation, consumption and marketing. Similarly, the endline survey will re-survey the same sampled households one year later after the midline survey to capture sustained adoption and dis-adoption dynamics (Abate et al., 2023) and to provide insight on impacts over a longer term. Both the midline and endline survey will also aim to collect data on unintended (positive and negative) consequences of the adoption of PBR cowpea, e.g., a decrease in pest pressure affecting cowpea across the community. Although we do not anticipate a significant or systematic attrition rate during the intervention or between survey rounds, the study will conduct tests to explore attrition bias resulting from households dropping out of the study during or after the intervention.
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Randomization Method
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Before
We will randomize at the level of communities using a complete listing from the census ordered cowpea producers for at least two seasons randomly using a random number generator in a computer program such as Stata or Excel.
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After
We will randomize the level of community using a complete listing of communities that have that cultivate cowpeas for at least two seasons prior to the intervention. Communities will be randomly assigned to the three arms of the experiment (T1, T2, or C) using a random number generator.
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Randomization Unit
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Before
Farmers clustered at community level
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Communities within Local Government Areas
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Intervention (Hidden)
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Before
Our main conclusions from stakeholder consultations and the implications for the evaluation are as follows:
1. Low penetration of PBR cowpea: In the 2021 season, the first commercial planting season for PBR cowpea in Nigeria, there was limited seed availability. Around 800 farmers, and possibly up to 1,000 including resales, had access to PBR cowpea. The seed distribution was limited to around 32 farmers per state, according to the information received for the 2021 season. The seed companies will focus on sales to farmers in the northern states for the next two or three planting seasons. This limited distribution is due to several factors including challenges with seed multiplication. One implication for the evaluation design is the possible need for IFPRI to provide direct access to quality, certified seeds to generate the treatment and control groups. It is also important to ensure that adequate product support is provided to farmers to ensure that “full” adoption is achieved. A “full” adoption in this context would mean farmers use of PBR cowpea technology alongside the requisite accompanying farm practices. A “partial” adoption would mean farmers use the technology without the recommended practices and suggested inputs. In any event, rigorous tracking of study participants will be needed to ascertain exactly what they are doing. This may require means to assess the quality of the processes to ensure adoption. To assure seed quality and the requisite quantity needed to conduct the study, direct purchase of the PBR transgenic seed from the approved project seed companies will be explored. The same holds for conventional seed for the control group. Provision of seed also offers an incentive to study group farmers to participate in the evaluation throughout its duration. Naturally, even though we will be providing seed to all farmers, the proposed cost benefit analysis will include the market cost of this input
2. Potential for implementing a c-RCT: Due to the limited penetration in the 2021 season, there is scope for implementing a clustered-Randomized Controlled Trial (c-RCT) by identifying communities which did not have access to PBR cowpea seed in 2021. The team has interacted with NABDA and with the agricultural extension officers in Adamawa state to narrow the list of likely local government areas (LGAs) and communities for the intervention.
3. Challenges and risks for maintaining treatment and control groups: The main challenges are the potential for PBR cowpea seed spillover into the control group over time and the risk that farmers in the treatment group may recycle seeds in subsequent seasons. The team discussed these challenges extensively; while we remain confident that c-RCT implementation is feasible, we plan to take some precautions. First, spillovers are more likely to occur after one or two cropping seasons when the benefits of PBR cowpea are initially obvious; rather than wait 1-3 years to detect impact, we plan to use the mid-line survey after one season as a milestone for measuring impacts. Second, we will employ a field team of research assistants and extension officers to help track implementation, including protocol breaches. Third, given the complexities of implementation we plan to use qualitative field work to uncover key findings that could explain quantitative findings. Lastly, in year three, the research team will adjust the research design, based on field-level outcomes, to analyze the endline data. For example, if we find, through field monitoring, that some control group farmers have planted PBR cowpea seed, we will identify them as an additional treatment group; this group could be used to measure impacts and spillover effects compared to the remainder of the control group.
4. AATF Collaboration: Formalizing a collaboration agreement with AATF that is satisfactory and workable for all is essential to secure AATF collaboration and critical for the implementation of this IE design protocol. This agreement needs to identify roles, responsibilities, and mutual expectations. Further discussion and clarification of these points are needed to arrive at a final agreement.
VI. POTENTIAL LIMITATIONS AND RISKS
This IE, like others, faces potential limitations and risks that could affect implementation of the research design, the context in which the evaluation is conducted, the responses of stakeholders to the evaluation design, or may even challenge the validity of the findings. Below we list some of the main challenges and indicate some of the ways in which we will attempt to deal with these complexities and mitigate identified risks. We also include possible steps to mitigate risks which are within the manageable control of the project.
IE project specific
1. Political and security context: Nigeria continues to face a complex political outlook, with election campaigning expected to accelerate in mid-2022 for the February 2023 elections. Some of the IE activities, especially early tasks related to randomization, baseline data collection, and midline data collection, may be complicated by the election timeframe. Political unrest is often linked to the election campaign cycle and could pose an untimely challenge for field work. Apart from the federal-level political context, the project will need to account for the state level political factors and security challenges as well. The local team will continue to monitor developments and schedule work in anticipation of local events which may pose heightened security risks.
2. Economic context: After a recession in 2020 tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown policies, Nigeria’s economy began to improve in 2021 with modest growth in the first three quarters. More recently, inflationary pressures have undermined economic growth, leading to declines in household purchasing power. Food prices have been notably affected and anecdotal evidence suggests that cowpea prices have been rising sharply. Exchange rate management has also fueled these inflationary pressures. For this evaluation, this economic context may have some implications. First, farmers may be more willing to adopt new technologies to improve farm productivity, especially if access and availability are improved. This could also increase the likelihood that farmers in a control group, without access to PBR cowpea, seek out the improved variety and thus “contaminate” the control sample. Second, increases in production may lead to lower prices for cowpea in markets where the project is implemented. Third, with the substantial increase in the cost of agricultural inputs and fuel, farmers’ practices are likely to change and adapt by reducing the use of costly inputs. While contamination can be addressed by adapting the design and shifting the new adopters to the spillover group, and lower prices might be compensated by expected increased production, higher input costs and fuel costs can result in farmers change in agricultural practices.
3. Agricultural and biosafety policy fluctuations: There may be significant policy fluctuations in agriculture either leading up to the elections in early 2023 or, depending on the outcome of the election, from a new or re-elected government. This could include input subsidy changes that may affect access to fertilizer and seeds. Other policy changes could include new policy positions regarding the use of biotechnology in agriculture leading up to the election or by a newly elected government. For example, currently there is legislative movement towards a modification of the existing biosafety act which gravitates towards a more precautionary approach. This concern may be slightly allayed by the fact that both political parties in Nigeria have permitted advances in the development of PBR cowpea and other biotechnology products. Also, given that Bt cowpea is already approved for commercialization, any major shifts in biosafety policy are less likely to impact this approved new variety, unless it is a shift in post market policy. The IE team will continue to consult with the IFPRI Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS) management team, the PBS country coordinator and other local projects tracking regulatory development to track regulatory development and discuss any interventions needed should policy changes impact PBR cowpea planting and seed distribution.
4. Adoption rates: While documented results from experimental field trials and farmer’s managed fields in Nigeria and elsewhere have shown that PBR cowpea requires fewer pesticide applications as compared to managed conventional cowpea, these results might not be similar or replicated when PBR seed cultivation is widespread, due to farmer practices and characteristics. In fact, the data analyzed for IFPRI’s recent ex ante assessment for Bt cowpea (Phillip et al., 2019) show that a substantial number of resource-poor farmers who plant cowpea use few insecticides, recycle seed, lack access to credit and are located far away from markets. This is not a limitation for the RCT IE implementation, since PBR cowpea will be provided to all treated farmers, but it could be a limitation for PBR cowpea expansion in Nigeria, if farmers end up not buying the seed in the future, for the stated identified reasons. This reinforces the need for conveying information on recommended practices for farmers enlisted in the treatment arms.
5. Seed availability and quality: There are still some uncertainties about PBR cowpea deployment and dissemination timelines and seed availability. In the 2021 season, around 800 farmers, or 32 farmers per state, received 200 grams of PBR cowpea for cultivation. Judging from the low volumes of seed distributed in the 2021 season, the eval
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After
The study uses an encouragement design in a cluster randomized controlled trial (c-RCT) combined with qualitative research to estimate the impact of PBR cowpea on key productivity, income, environmental, health, and social outcomes at the household and farm levels in Nigeria’s main cowpea-producing regions. The study will be conducted within randomly selected communities located in Local Government Areas (LGAs, or sub-state administrative units that are similar to districts or counties) in the two main cowpea-cultivating states of Nigeria. The intervention will be conducted during a single growing season in 2023.
Participants in selected communities will be randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups or the control group. There will be two treatment groups: Treatment 1 (T1) will receive PBR cowpea plus fertilizer and pesticide for 2 kg of PBR cowpea package; and treatment 2 (T2) will receive only 2 kg of PBR cowpea package. The control group (C) will receive conventional cowpea seed packages. This encouragement design will estimate the impact of PBR cowpea under somewhat optimal conditions, i.e., conditions that farmers may not necessarily face in the future when markets and services for PBR cowpea seed distribution, information provision, and complementary inputs expand in the future. These optimal conditions include providing farmers with cowpea seed (PBR cowpea seed for treatment group farmers, and non-PBR cowpea seed for control group farmers), information on cowpea cultivation and management (including the planting of refugia to discourage rapid emergence of resistance to the PBR trait), and complementary inputs (primarily fertilizer and pesticides). This is deemed necessary for the evaluation because the first PBR cowpea variety was released in Nigeria only in 2019 and promotion efforts are still at a very nascent stage, implying that most farmers are generally not yet aware of or familiar with the variety. These optimal conditions are standardized between treatment and control groups to incentivize uptake at levels and rates required to minimally detect the effects of the intervention.
While our research design will allow us to quantify the overall and relative impacts of the incremental treatment arms of the intervention, it will also facilitate further heterogeneity analyses on potential differential impacts across groups of individuals by gender and education. Identifying the relative, heterogeneous and impacts of these interventions is crucial to designing cost-effective and scalable approaches to address gender gaps in PBR cowpea agricultural productivity in Nigeria.
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Field
Public analysis plan
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Before
No
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After
Yes
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Field
Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
1. Household cowpea commercialization
2. Household cowpea consumption
3. Self-reports of symptoms associated with pesticide poisoning
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After
1. Adoption of PBR cowpea
2. Consumption of cowpea
3. Food availability and nutrition
4. Labor use and costs
5. Marketing and commercialization
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Field
Secondary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
1. Household cowpea commercialization, which will be measured based on the proportion of sold cowpea.
2. Household cowpea consumption, which will be measured based on the cowpea consumption per person and per adult equivalent.
3. Self-reports of symptoms consistent with pesticide exposure, which is measured based on number of symptoms (number) and medical expenses incurred to address symptoms (naira per capita).
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After
1. Adoption of PBR: Farmer expected adoption of PBR varieties used in the intervention subsequent seasons, measured as: a binary variable (1=adoption; 0 otherwise); the share of total operated farm area under cowpea cultivation (%); and the share of total area under cowpea cultivation (%).
2. Consumption of cowpea: Consumption of own-produced cowpea (measured in terms of appropriate quantities per person, per household, and per adult equivalent for a selected time recall periods); consumption index.
3. Labor use and costs: measured in terms of number and type of labor use; labor-days used in planting, production and harvesting by gender and hired labor for cowpea production (number of days worked).
4. Marketing and commercialization: Cowpea output sold to market vs. saved for home consumption (kg/ha, %); gross revenue from cowpea sold to market and its share of total household farm revenue (NGN/ha, %); commercialization index.
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