Adoption of improved wheat varieties and impacts on household food security in Ethiopia

•Wheat is an important crop in Ethiopia and several new varieties have been released.•Endogenous switching regression treatment effects used with PSM and GPS to measure impacts.•Consistent results across models indicate that adoption increases food security.•Adopting households have higher levels of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Food policy 2014-02, Vol.44, p.272-284
Main Authors: Shiferaw, Bekele, Kassie, Menale, Jaleta, Moti, Yirga, Chilot
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural research
Endogenous switching regression
Ethiopia
Farms
Food
Food security
Food supply
Foods
Generalized propensity score
Households
Investment
Investments
Mathematical models
Policies
Security
Treatment effects
Wheat
Wheat variety adoption
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Summary:•Wheat is an important crop in Ethiopia and several new varieties have been released.•Endogenous switching regression treatment effects used with PSM and GPS to measure impacts.•Consistent results across models indicate that adoption increases food security.•Adopting households have higher levels of consumption and less vulnerable to shocks.•Policies for replacing outdated varieties and increasing access will enhance food security. This article evaluates the impact of the adoption of improved wheat varieties on food security using a recent nationally-representative dataset of over 2000 farm households in Ethiopia. We adopted endogenous switching regression treatment effects complemented with a binary propensity score matching methodology to test robustness and reduced selection bias stemming from both observed and unobserved characteristics. We expand this further with the generalized propensity score (GPS) approach to evaluate the effects of continuous treatment on the response of the outcome variables. We find a consistent result across models indicating that adoption increases food security and farm households that did adopt would also have benefited significantly had they adopted new varieties. This study supports the need for vital investments in agricultural research for major food staples widely consumed by the poor, and efforts to improve access to modern varieties and services. Policies that enhance diffusion and adoption of modern wheat varieties should be central to food security strategies in Ethiopia.
ISSN:0306-9192
1873-5657
DOI:10.1016/j.foodpol.2013.09.012