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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Kate Ambler

Kate Amber is a Senior Research Fellow in the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit. Kate’s research broadly focuses on interventions that can increase incomes for smallholders and other microenterprises in agrifood value chains, with a specific focus on the inclusion of women. This includes work on programming in fragile settings, innovations in agricultural finance, and regulatory solutions for food safety. 

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Where we work

IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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partnerships

Digital Green is a global development organization that seeks to help small farmers out of poverty using technology and grassroots level partnerships. Digital Green is a leader in the application of technology in the promotion of global development. Digital Green provides farmers the tools they need to connect with one another in regards to their own livelihoods and the livelihoods of others in the their community.

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Publications

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Conference Paper

Impacts of a digital credit-insurance bundle for landless farmers: Evidence from a cluster randomized trial in Odisha, India

2023Kramer, Berber; Pattnaik, Subhransu; Ward, Patrick S.; Xu, Yingchen
Details

Impacts of a digital credit-insurance bundle for landless farmers: Evidence from a cluster randomized trial in Odisha, India

Smallholder farmers often lack documented land rights to serve as collateral for formal loans, and their livelihoods are inextricably linked to increasingly variable weather conditions. Resulting credit and risk constraints prevent them from making potentially profitable investments in their farms. We implemented a randomized evaluation of the impacts of KhetScore, an innovative credit scoring methodology that uses digital technologies and in particular remote sensing to unlock credit and insurance for smallholders including landless farmers in Odisha, a state in eastern India. In our treatment group, where we offered loans and insurance based on the KhetScore methodology, farmers – and especially women – were more likely to purchase insurance, renew insurance coverage in subsequent years, and borrow from formal sources without substituting formal loans for informal loans. Despite increased borrowing, households in the treatment group faced less difficulty in repaying loans, suggesting that KhetScore loans, bundled with crop insurance, transferred risk and eased the burden of repayment. Moreover, the treatment increased agricultural revenues during the monsoon (kharif) season and reduced costs in the dry (rabi) season, enhancing profitability in both seasons. Positive and significant effects are found not only among baseline credit unconstrained farmers but also quantity rationed farmers, suggesting that KhetScore loans can help overcome supply-side credit constraints. Finally, women in the treatment group reported significantly higher levels of empowerment and mental health, manifested in increased participation in household decision-making and reduced feelings of stress, than women in the control group. In conclusion, digital technologies can contribute substantially to expansion in agricultural credit access, risk management, resilience, and well-being among marginalized landless farmers.

Year published

2023

Authors

Kramer, Berber; Pattnaik, Subhransu; Ward, Patrick S.; Xu, Yingchen

Citation

Kramer, Berber; Pattnaik, Subhransu; Ward, Patrick S.; and Xu, Yingchen. 2023. Impacts of a digital credit-insurance bundle for landless farmers: Evidence from a cluster randomized trial in Odisha, India. Presented at the 2024 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 5-7, 2024, San Antonio, Texas.

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Credit; Impact Assessment; Insurance; Smallholders

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Conference Paper

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Brief

Digital farmer registry and tailored extension and advisory services in Ethiopia: A process evaluation

2023Sebsibie, Samuel; Ketema, Dessalegn Molla; Abate, Gashaw T.
Details

Digital farmer registry and tailored extension and advisory services in Ethiopia: A process evaluation

Ethiopia hosts one of the largest extension systems in Africa, with approximately 43 development agents (DAs) per 10,000 farmers, more than 15,000 farmers training centers (FTCs) that serve as a focal point for agricultural development activities at the local level, and 25 Agricultural Technical Voca tional Education and Training (ATVET) institutes that prepare and update extension staff in both general and specialized fields of expertise (Berhane et al. 2018; ATA 2014; Davis et al. 2010). DAs report edly reach more than 75% of farm households in the country (CSA 2017), and every kebele hosts an average of three DAs, each with his or her own specialization. However, there are concerns about the quality of extension and advisory services DAs provide mainly because DAs are overburdened and under-resourced. DAs actively engage in activities that do not typically fall under the mandate of agricultural extension services, including the collection of taxes, loan repayments and mobilization of labor for public works. A related concern is the simple “technology-push” approach to agricultural intensification followed by most DAs since they do not have the time to closely know the farmers and provide a more “tailored and knowledge-driven” advisory that puts farmers’ priorities and technical capabilities at the center of DA’s effort (Berhane et al. 2018; Bachewe et al. 2017).

Year published

2023

Authors

Sebsibie, Samuel; Ketema, Dessalegn Molla; Abate, Gashaw T.

Citation

Sebsibie, Samuel; Ketema, Dessalegn Molla; and Abate, Gashaw Tadesse. 2023. Digital farmer registry and tailored extension and advisory services in Ethiopia: A process evaluation. IFPRI Project Note February 2023. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.136603.

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Extension; Development; Agricultural Extension; Farmers; Households; Technology; Intensification; Agricultural Development

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.136603 Source record

Record type

Brief

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Dataset

Video-Mediated Extension in Ethiopia Household Survey, 2019

2022International Food Policy Research Institute
Details

Video-Mediated Extension in Ethiopia Household Survey, 2019

These data are generated for the study conducted to evaluate a public extension program that integrates informational video screening with extension service provision to improve farmers’ knowledge and adoption of improved agricultural technologies and practices. Specifically, the study focuses on a program piloted by the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), regional bureaus of agriculture, and Digital Green, a social enterprise, in the country’s four most agriculturally important regional states. Data for this study are drawn from a series of surveys conducted among farmers participating in the study. A survey of more than 2,400 randomly selected households assigned to one of the three treatment arms after the year 1 (2017) rollout in early 2018, following the meher season harvest. A subsequent round of household surveys was conducted in early 2019, following the year 2 (2018) rollout of the implementation. This dataset includes data from follow-up survey conducted in 2019. Data were collected using two separate questionnaires from both household heads and spouses. The household head questionnaire covered topics including household characteristics, assets, access to services, technology adoption, knowledge of agricultural practices, experience with video, crop sales, non-farm income, savings, food security, shocks, and plot-level information on land use, production, and inputs. The spouse questionnaire included sections on assets, technology adoption, knowledge of agricultural practices, and experience with video.

Year published

2022

Authors

International Food Policy Research Institute

Citation

International Food Policy Research Institute. 2022. Video-Mediated Extension in Ethiopia Household Survey, 2019. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/MYTKXV. Harvard Dataverse. Version 1.

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Crop Management; Household Surveys; Agricultural Extension; Farmers; Smallholders; Information and Communication Technologies

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.7910/dvn/mytkxv Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Dataset

Blogs

What can we really learn from sex-disaggregated data?
IFPRI Blog
 | 
January 11, 2022

What can we really learn from sex-disaggregated data?

By Bjorn Van Campenhout, Els Lecoutere, and David Spielman

Parsing sometimes contradictory responses in household surveys.

Providing information to empower women in agriculture: Evidence from Uganda
IFPRI Blog
 | 
May 08, 2020

Providing information to empower women in agriculture: Evidence from Uganda

By Bjorn Van Campenhout, Els Lecoutere, and David Spielman

A study shows that viewing videos on farming techniques has a range of gender equity benefits.