The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program Impact Evaluation proposes to study the impact of seed and tool distribution on the take-up of modern farming inputs and the use of productivity enhancing tools, thereby resulting in higher agricultural yields and improved nutritional outcomes, as measured by dietary diversity scores. The wide geographic scope of SAPEC and its focus on smallholder farmers offer a unique opportunity to generate data that can be more robustly extrapolated to the wider Liberian population. We will use data from a 2016 registration of Liberian farmers to randomly select 1,000 Liberian farmers from 100 randomly selected communities in Liberian districts serviced by SAPEC.
Using a randomization at multiple levels, we seek to determine whether the provision of 91%-subsidized improved seeds, tools, and fertilizer promote the take-up of modern farming inputs and improve diets. We will also study whether particular beneficiary sub-groups (by age and gender) are more likely to respond to SMS messaging with an agricultural focus and whether small adjustments to the content of these messages can result in relatively greater improvements in take-up by youth.