LINKING FINANCIAL AND AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONS FOR WOMEN FARMERS’ RESILIENCE IN NIGERIA

Last registered on April 26, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
LINKING FINANCIAL AND AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONS FOR WOMEN FARMERS’ RESILIENCE IN NIGERIA
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0011274
Initial registration date
April 20, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 26, 2023, 5:13 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Ilorin

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
The Ohio State University, Columbus , USA
PI Affiliation
University of Ilorin, Nigeria
PI Affiliation
Federal University of Technology, Akure,Nigeria
PI Affiliation
University of Ilorin, Nigeria

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2021-11-01
End date
2024-06-30
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Financial and agricultural technologies could help women farmers in Nigeria to build their resilience to shocks. Among the most promising of the agricultural innovations are stress-tolerant crop varieties, an improved maize developed by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) through the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project. These seed varieties have proven to sustain yields during moderate mid-season drought. Financial technologies such as financial literacy, Area yield index insurance build resilience by providing financial literacy and payments in the event of insured losses. Index insurance bases payouts on an index of factors, such as rainfall or vegetation growth, that predict crop losses in an area. Because this type of insurance does not require a direct verification of losses, it can be made available at a much lower cost than conventional insurance and cost-effectively scaled across dispersed rural communities. On their own, these two innovations separately may not adequately promote resilience among farmers, particularly women. It is important to build our understanding of how to integrate these two technologies into comprehensive solutions to manage weather-related risk and how they might be tailored to meet the different needs and attitudes of women and men. Hence The University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), is committed to rigorously testing the interlinked effort of financial services, insurance, and use of stress tolerant seeds that will help build resilience among smallholder women farmers in Nigeria. Our primary null hypotheses are that: (1)There is no significant difference in access to financial services, stress tolerant seeds and formal insurance among men and women smallholder farmers. (2) There is no significant effect of adoption of stress tolerant maize on productivity of men and women smallholder farmers; (3) There is no significant effect of financial literacy, insurance and stress tolerant maize seed on the resilience of men and women smallholder farmers.
The Stress Tolerant Maize (STM) group in University of Ilorin and Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods project (AGG) of IITA project will provides logistic support for the research. The research will use STM and AGG interventions as laboratories for assessing the impact of interlinking of insurance and financial services with stress tolerant seeds in building resilience among women smallholders in Nigeria. The research partners are National Agricultural insurance Corporation (NAIC) in Nigeria and Shine Initiative for Empowerment of Rural Dwellers, division of Arise Microfinance Bank.

Registration Citation

Citation
Ayinde, kayode et al. 2023. "LINKING FINANCIAL AND AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONS FOR WOMEN FARMERS’ RESILIENCE IN NIGERIA." AEA RCT Registry. April 26. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11274-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention of our experiment is Stress-Tolerant Maize seed. The study has two interventions. Intervention 1 is training on STM technology and access to STM Seed at subsidized price. And Intervention 2 is STM technology with Financial services and Insurance which is training on STM technology; access to STM Seed at subsidized price; financial literacy training; Access to production loan and offer area-yield insurance contract.
Intervention Start Date
2022-04-01
Intervention End Date
2023-10-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Stress Tolerant Maize seed adoption, credit Access, demand for agricultural production loan, willing to pay for area yield index insurance, gender production gap,
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Increased Maize productivity,
Increased Women Income
Economic Resilience
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The identification strategy for this study is randomization of rural villages with two treatment arms and one control arm. The study implements a randomized control trial (RCT) involving two interventions:
1. Control (C) Group: Farmers in this group will not be given neither intervention 1 nor 2.
2. Treatment 1 (T1) Group: Farmers in this group will receive intervention 1.
3. Treatment 2 (T2) Group: Farmers in this group will receive intervention 2 .
The study employs a three-stage random sampling technique and one hundred and twenty distinct villages were randomly selected and assign to the two treatment arms and one control arm. The villages for the Control Group were selected several kilometers from the T1 and T2 Groups and with assurance that they have not planted STMA before. The timeline of the study is as follows
November 2021- March 2022: baseline survey
April 2022 to October 2023 Intervention
January-Mar 2023: Follow-up survey
October 2023- January 2024: End-line survey
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
randomization done in office by computer using Excel
Randomization Unit
Villages
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
3 ecological zones, 120 rural villages
Sample size: planned number of observations
2400 men and women small-scale farmers
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
2,400 men and women small-scale farmers in 120 rural villages with 30 groups in each treatment arm and 60 in the control group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
The sample size for each of one hundred and twenty (120) distinct villages for the study was determined using the sample size determination technique of Balance (one with equal replications) Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with effect size, level of significance and power respectively taken as 0.25, 0.05 and 0.95; and as a result, the sample size for each Village is estimated to be 10 using the R-Statistical software. Consequently, a sample sizeof ten (10) men farmers and ten (10) women farmers was selected from each of the one hundred and twenty (120) villages to have a total of 2,400 farmers for the study.
Supporting Documents and Materials

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Ilorin Nigeria Ethical Review Committee
IRB Approval Date
2023-02-14
IRB Approval Number
UERC/ASN/2023/2443
Analysis Plan

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information