Indifferent to difference? Understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. A review

Abstract

With many of the world’s poor engaged in agriculture, agricultural development programmes often aim to improve livelihoods through improved farming practices. Research on the impacts of agricultural technology interventions is dominated by comparisons of adopters and non-adopters. By contrast, in this literature study, we critically review how technology evaluation studies assess differentiated impacts in smallholder farming communities. We searched systematically for studies which present agricultural technology impacts disaggregated for poor and relatively better-off users (adopters). The major findings of our systematic review are as follows: (1) The number of studies that assessed impact differentiation was startlingly small: we were able to identify only 85, among which only 24 presented empirical findings. (2) These studies confirm an expected trend: absolute benefits are larger for the better-off, and large relative benefits among the poor are mostly due to meagre baseline performance. (3) Households are primarily considered as independent entities, rather than as connected with others directly or indirectly, via markets or common resource pools. (4) Explanations for impact differentiation are mainly sought in existing distributions of structural household characteristics. We collated the explanations provided in the selected studies across a nested hierarchy: the field, the farm or household, and households interacting at the farming system level. We also consider impact differentiation over time. With this, we provide a structured overview of potential drivers of differentiation, to guide future research for development towards explicitly recognizing the poor among the poor, acknowledging unequal impacts, aiming to avoid negative consequences, and mitigating them where they occur.

Effects of the COVID-19 induced cotton crisis on agricultural production and livelihoods of smallholders in southern Mali

“…While access to fertilizer and agricultural productivity differs between farm types with the poorest farms often left behind (Falconnier et al, 2015), it is likely that abandoning cotton would have a larger effect on the high resource farms that cultivate more cotton and strongly depend on cotton for their access to inputs and income generation. A better understanding of equity dynamics in smallholder systems-through assessing differentiated impacts (Thuijsman et al, 2022) -can help in supporting the adaptive capacities of farmers of different resources. In the present study, we aim to investigate the implications of the cotton crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural productivity and livelihoods of smallholders with different resource endowments in the cotton-based farming system of Koutiala, in southern Mali.…”

Not wrapped up in cotton wool : how risk influences farming in southern Mali

“…Although it is well described that within West African households access to inputs, labour and decision power is complex and unevenly divided between age and gender , this does not necessarily mean that youth and women cannot benefit indirectly. Our results only describe the direct reach of the activities, and not the impact of potential benefits (Thuijsman et al, 2022).…”

“…Still, it is important to understand contextual social specificities within research work to be able to adapt options to different contexts and users in a changing socio-economic environment (Thuijsman et al, 2022). In the context of southern Mali, we suggest that an approach that is truly intersectional and gender-inclusive should include the dynamics of access to land and financial capital, as the lack of these two resources were the main reasons why farmers dropped a try-out.…”

“…Finally, evaluations at field level may not be sufficient to reflect the impact at farm level. The potential of SI options at field level may be promising, while at farm level other constraints arise or the benefit in income or food supply is too limited for farmers to improve their situation (Giller et al, 2011;Thuijsman et al, 2022). The farm level potential of SI options may differ between poorer and betteroff farmers.…”

“…Many studies highlighted the limitations of such an approach and suggested a paradigm shift (Giller et al, 2006;Giller et al, 2011;Urruty et al, 2016;Descheemaeker et al, 2019). First, promising options at field level may not provide the increase in income or food supply at farm level that is needed for farmers to improve their situation (Thuijsman et al, 2022). Second, the average yield does not take into account the variability existing in time and space, which plays an important role in farmers' decisions (Vanlauwe et al, 2019).…”