The impact of Ethiopia's direct seed marketing approach on smallholders' access to seeds, productivity, and commercialization

cg.authorship.typesCGIAR single centreen
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Food Policy Research Instituteen
cg.contributor.crpPolicies, Institutions, and Markets
cg.coverage.countryEthiopia
cg.coverage.iso3166-alpha2ET
cg.coverage.regionSub-Saharan Africa
cg.coverage.regionAfrica
cg.coverage.regionEastern Africa
cg.creator.identifierDawit Mekonnen: 0000-0003-3642-3497
cg.creator.identifierGashaw T. Abate: 0000-0003-2026-8066
cg.creator.identifierSeid Yimam: 0000-0001-7058-5073
cg.creator.identifierRui Benfica: 0000-0003-2631-107X
cg.creator.identifierDavid J. Spielman: 0000-0002-6889-7358
cg.creator.identifierFrank Place: 0000-0002-1216-8308
cg.identifier.projectIFPRI - Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division
cg.identifier.projectIFPRI - Environment and Production Technology Division
cg.identifier.projectIFPRI - Development Strategy and Governance Division
cg.identifier.projectIFPRI - Ethiopia Strategy Support Program
cg.identifier.publicationRankNot ranked
cg.identifier.urlhttps://purl.umn.edu/312925en
cg.reviewStatusInternal Reviewen
dc.contributor.authorMekonnen, Dawit Kelemeworken
dc.contributor.authorAbate, Gashaw T.en
dc.contributor.authorYimam, Seiden
dc.contributor.authorBenfica, Ruien
dc.contributor.authorSpielman, David J.en
dc.contributor.authorPlace, Franken
dc.date.accessioned2024-05-22T12:11:33Zen
dc.date.available2024-05-22T12:11:33Zen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/143008
dc.titleThe impact of Ethiopia's direct seed marketing approach on smallholders' access to seeds, productivity, and commercializationen
dcterms.abstractSeveral factors contribute to the low level of improved variety use in Ethiopia. Among those, on the supply side, is the limited availability of seed in the volumes, quality, and timeliness required by farmers, which is partly a result of limited public and private investment in the sector. Beginning in 2011, the Government of Ethiopia introduced a novel experiment-the Direct Seed Marketing (DSM) approach-to reduce some of the centralized, state-run attributes of the country’s seed market and rationalize the use of public resources. DSM was designed to incentivize private and public seed producers to sell seed directly to farmers rather than through the state apparatus. This study is the first quantitative evaluation of DSM’s impact on indicators of a healthy seed system: access to quality seeds, on-farm productivity, and market participation of smallholders. Using a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences approach, the study finds that DSM led to a 26 percent increase in maize yields and a 5 percent increase in the share of maize harvest sold. DSM also led to improvements in seed availability for all three of Ethiopia’s major cereals: maize, wheat, and teff. However, DSM’s effects on yields and share of harvest sold are not statistically significant for wheat and teff. These crop-specific differences in performance are likely explainable by biological differences between hybrid maize and openly pollinated varieties of wheat and teff that incentivize private sector participation in maize seed markets over wheat and teff seed markets. These differences demand different policies and perhaps even institutional approaches to accelerating adoption between hybrids and OPVs.en
dcterms.accessRightsOpen Access
dcterms.bibliographicCitationMekonnen, Dawit Kelemework; Abate, Gashaw Tadesse; Yimam, Seid; Benfica, Rui; Spielman, David J.; and Place, Frank. 2021. The impact of Ethiopia's direct seed marketing approach on smallholders' access to seeds, productivity, and commercialization. Presented at the AAEA Annual Meeting in JW Marriott in Austin, United States, August 1-3, 2021. https://purl.umn.edu/312925en
dcterms.issued2021-08-03
dcterms.languageen
dcterms.publisherAgricultural and Applied Economics Associationen
dcterms.relationhttps://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.134247en
dcterms.replaceshttps://ebrary.ifpri.org/digital/collection/p15738coll5/id/7872en
dcterms.subjectseed systemsen
dcterms.subjectseed qualityen
dcterms.subjectseedsen
dcterms.subjectdirect marketingen
dcterms.subjectcropsen
dcterms.subjectmaizeen
dcterms.subjectcrop productionen
dcterms.subjectsmallholdersen
dcterms.subjectmarketingen
dcterms.subjectseed productionen
dcterms.subjectproductivityen
dcterms.subjectcommercializationen
dcterms.typeConference Paper

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