Journal
FOOD POLICY
Volume 76, Issue -, Pages 70-80Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.03.009
Keywords
Agricultural development; Impact evaluation; Irrigation; Machine learning
Categories
Funding
- Millennium Challenge Corporation
- AMA Innovation Lab at the University of California, Davis
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Groundwater irrigation can dramatically affect agricultural production and productivity. Despite its potential as an agricultural development tool, little credible evidence exists for the impacts of groundwater development on smallholder agriculture. We add to the evidence on the benefits of irrigation investments for small producers by evaluating the Rural Business Development (RBD) program of the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Nicaragua for small plantain producers. The RBD program offered matching funds covering up to 30% of the cost of two years of inputs, extension services, and diesel-powered micro-sprinkler irrigation for individual farms. In order to estimate the average impact of the RBD program on its beneficiaries, we combine model selection via the LASSO with doubly robust treatment effect estimation as applied to two years of panel data for 146 producers. We find that the program had substantial impacts on plantain revenue and production, while achieving nearly complete irrigation coverage of plantain land among beneficiaries. We find no discernible impact on household expenditure.
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