Browsing by Author "Palm, Cheryl A"

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    Increasing maize yields with soil testing and subsides in Tanzania
    (FEED THE FUTURE, 2020-09) Harou, Aurélie P; Madajewicz, Malgosia; Michelson, Hope; Palm, Cheryl A; Amuri, Nyambilila A; Magomba, Christopher; Semoka, Johnson M; Tschirhart, Kevin; Weil, Ray
    Though the use of fertilizers can enhance productivity and increase profits for small-scale farming families, two barriers to their adoption have proved critical. First, many farmers often cannot afford to buy fertilizers; second, use recommendations from government sources may not be appropriate for specific farms. In Tanzania, 1 our multi-disciplinary team used low-cost soil testing to pair field-specific recommendations with subsidy vouchers to help cover the cost of fertilizer purchase. Our results show that farmers benefitted significantly in both yields and profits when (1) fertilizer recommendations were calibrated to the needs of individual farms and (2) a subsidy made the recommended fertilizers affordable.
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    Relaxing credit and information constraints: five-Year experimental evidence from Tanzanian agriculture.
    (elservier, 2022-10-03) Tamim, Abdulrazzak; Harou, Aurélie P; Lobell, David; Madajewicz, Malgosia; Burke, Marshall; Michelson, Hope; Palm, Cheryl A; Xue, Jiani; Magomba, Christopher
    Low fertilizer application by small farmers continues to inhibit crop yields around the world. The reasons behind low application rates continue to be de- bated. We study the longer-term outcomes of a field experiment which focused on increasing fertilizer use. The original experiment showed that plot-specific fertilizer recommendations combined with a subsidy increase amounts of ap- plied fertilizer and maize yields relative to either intervention alone. We show that these effects dissipate once the subsidy is discontinued. Our results indi- cate that ability to pay for fertilizer continues to limit fertilizer use even when farmers have information about appropriate fertilizer types and amounts, and even after farmers have learned that fertilizer use is profitable. (JEL O13, Q16, Q18)