Short-Term Impacts of Oxen on Agricultural Production and Labor Supply in Côte d’Ivoire

Most rural households in lower-income countries rely on farming as their primary source of income, and on labor as the primary input to agricultural production. Mechanization, particularly in the form of animal traction, has the potential to raise agricultural incomes and facilitate the structural transformation of developing country economies. Although previous research has identified the conditions which favor the adoption of animal traction, observational studies on its potential benefits yield nuanced results and there is a dearth of rigorous evidence on impacts. In addition to knowledge gaps around how mechanization influences the economies of agricultural households, we also know little about whether (and why) technology adoption has differential impacts within the household.
In a two-year randomized phase-in trial conducted with 2,546 cotton farmers in four northern regions of rural Cote d’Ivoire, we test the impacts of a matching grant that covered 50 percent of the cost and the delivery of a pair of oxen. In economic terms, this is a large treatment: Previous studies have found that an ox is worth about 5 to 8 men, and that traction oxen are at least twice as powerful as smaller bovines: 400-500 watts of power versus less than 200 watts for small bovines (Smil, 2004; Starkey and Faye, 1990).
The sampling frame is composed of members of participating cotton societies. Members are eligible if they fulfill certain objective criteria (such as being married, having been a member of a cotton society for at least 3 years, and belonging to a single cotton society) and more subjective criteria determined by cotton society staff (being credit-worthy, trust-worthy and able to increase their cotton farmland by at least 4 hectares). We use a randomized phase-in approach for our experiment: from the initial sample frame of 2,546 eligible farmers, we randomly assign 1,273 producers to receive an oxen matching grant in an initial batch (treatment group) and 1,273 to receive the offer starting in 1.5 years later (control group).
Due to budget and timing constraints, we do not have baseline data in this experiment. We use non-varying demographic variables, as well as pre-program administrative data for a sub-sample of around half of the cotton producers, to test for balance. The main survey respondent is the household head, with specific questions on the receipt and use of oxen addressed to the producer in instances where the two diverge. We additionally randomly select and survey one girl and one boy in each household and administer numeracy and literacy assessments.