Evidence-based Scaling of Improved On-Farm Storage among Smallholders (Kenya, Phase III)

Last registered on October 16, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Evidence-based Scaling of Improved On-Farm Storage among Smallholders (Kenya, Phase III)
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019382
Initial registration date
October 09, 2026

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
October 16, 2026, 2:14 PM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Michael Brander
Affiliation
University of Zurich
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Matthias Huss
PI Affiliation
University of Zurich
PI Name
Zewdu Abro
PI Affiliation
ICIPE

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-09-07
End date
2027-12-31
Keywords
Agriculture, Finance & Microfinance
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
O13, Q12, Q16, D91, C93
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
Post-harvest grain losses severely limit food security and income among smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although hermetic storage bags (HBs) effectively reduce losses, adoption remains constrained by liquidity shortages at harvest. While deferred payment schemes increase uptake, high repayment rates are needed for scalability. This randomized controlled trial in Kakamega County, Kenya, evaluates the impact of different options to increase repayment rates, including community-led repayment structures, payment in instalments, and SMS nudges. The overall goal is to identify sustainable models for scaling agricultural technologies in general, and hermetic storage bags in particular.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Abro, Zewdu, Michael Brander and Matthias Huss. 2026. "Evidence-based Scaling of Improved On-Farm Storage among Smallholders (Kenya, Phase III) ." AEA RCT Registry. October 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19382-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Eligible smallholder households receive standardized training on improved on-farm storage. Following training, farmers are offered the opportunity to purchase storage bags under varying payment terms. To assess strategies for improving repayment rates and mitigating default risk under deferred payment models, sub-groups receive targeted behavioral nudges and participate through local community-based group structures.
Intervention Start Date
2026-09-07
Intervention End Date
2026-11-28

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary outcome variable to be measured are repayment rates, hermetic storage bag purchase rates and number of bags purchased,
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
As secondary outcome variables, we measure household food security, household maize stocks, sales behavior and local market prices over the course of at least one harvest cycle among all participating farmers.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
To measure self-assessed food security, we use the reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI), and apply standard weights and thresholds for classification in food (in)security categories (Maxwell et al., 2014; Vaitla et al., 2017).

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We implement a randomized control trial (RCT) to study how (i) different payment modalities and (ii) behavioural nudges impact default rates among smallholder farmers purchasing HBs under a deferred payment scheme. The RCT is implemented in Kenya (Kakamega county).
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Random allocation at Farmer Groups level for Treatments A, B1, B2. At individual farmer level for SMS nudges.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
About 190 farmer groups
Sample size: planned number of observations
About 4500 farmers
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
About 65 groups for each treatment arm (A, B1, B2)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Human Subjects Committee of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics at the University of Zurich
IRB Approval Date
2026-09-03
IRB Approval Number
OEC IRB # 2026-091
Analysis Plan