Indifferent to difference? Understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. A review
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.
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Springer
2022
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Subjects: | AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY, Research for Development, Technology Adoption, Inequality, Interventions, EVALUATION, RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY, SMALLHOLDERS, FARM EQUIPMENT, |
Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10883/22084 |
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dig-cimmyt-10883-220842023-09-08T21:10:36Z Indifferent to difference? Understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. A review Thuijsman, E.S. Braber, H.J. Andersson, J.A. Descheemaeker, K. Baudron, F. Lopez-Ridaura, S. Vanlauwe, B. Giller, K.E. AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY Research for Development Technology Adoption Inequality Interventions EVALUATION RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY SMALLHOLDERS FARM EQUIPMENT 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. 2022-06-07T00:38:19Z 2022-06-07T00:38:19Z 2022 Article Published Version https://hdl.handle.net/10883/22084 10.1007/s13593-022-00768-6 English https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13593-022-00768-6#Sec14 CIMMYT manages Intellectual Assets as International Public Goods. The user is free to download, print, store and share this work. In case you want to translate or create any other derivative work and share or distribute such translation/derivative work, please contact CIMMYT-Knowledge-Center@cgiar.org indicating the work you want to use and the kind of use you intend; CIMMYT will contact you with the suitable license for that purpose Open Access Germany Springer 3 42 1774-0746 Agronomy for Sustainable Development 41 |
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AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY Research for Development Technology Adoption Inequality Interventions EVALUATION RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY SMALLHOLDERS FARM EQUIPMENT AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY Research for Development Technology Adoption Inequality Interventions EVALUATION RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY SMALLHOLDERS FARM EQUIPMENT |
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AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY Research for Development Technology Adoption Inequality Interventions EVALUATION RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY SMALLHOLDERS FARM EQUIPMENT AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY Research for Development Technology Adoption Inequality Interventions EVALUATION RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY SMALLHOLDERS FARM EQUIPMENT Thuijsman, E.S. Braber, H.J. Andersson, J.A. Descheemaeker, K. Baudron, F. Lopez-Ridaura, S. Vanlauwe, B. Giller, K.E. Indifferent to difference? Understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. A review |
description |
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. |
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Article |
topic_facet |
AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY Research for Development Technology Adoption Inequality Interventions EVALUATION RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY SMALLHOLDERS FARM EQUIPMENT |
author |
Thuijsman, E.S. Braber, H.J. Andersson, J.A. Descheemaeker, K. Baudron, F. Lopez-Ridaura, S. Vanlauwe, B. Giller, K.E. |
author_facet |
Thuijsman, E.S. Braber, H.J. Andersson, J.A. Descheemaeker, K. Baudron, F. Lopez-Ridaura, S. Vanlauwe, B. Giller, K.E. |
author_sort |
Thuijsman, E.S. |
title |
Indifferent to difference? Understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. A review |
title_short |
Indifferent to difference? Understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. A review |
title_full |
Indifferent to difference? Understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. A review |
title_fullStr |
Indifferent to difference? Understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. A review |
title_full_unstemmed |
Indifferent to difference? Understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. A review |
title_sort |
indifferent to difference? understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. a review |
publisher |
Springer |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10883/22084 |
work_keys_str_mv |
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