Exploring the Role of Farmer-Led Jumpstarting Project on Adoption of Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato in Nigeria: Implications on Productivity and Poverty

Abstract

To promote the adoption of the orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) among the farmers, OFSP was introduced to the farmers through a program tagged “Jumpstarting Project” (JP), a West African project initiative of Harvestplus and its partners, which was implemented in Osun and Kwara States, in Nigeria. Using household-level data in Nigeria, this paper examined how the intervention of a farmer-led multiplication–dissemination Jumpstarting Project has sustained the adoption of OFSP after years of its implementation and the consequent impact of adoption on productivity and welfare of the farmers. Our main empirical findings are as follows. First, the implementation of the Jumpstarting Project in project communities of Osun and Kwara States shows that the adoption of OFSP has increased and has been sustained over the years. Furthermore, the result of the propensity score matching confirms possible spillover between project communities and control groups. Second, estimation from the endogenous treatment effect indicates that the estimated average treatment effects on the treated indicates a yield gain for the adopters of OFSP. Third, the result of the average treatment effects on the treated from the endogenous switching probit model shows that the probability of being poor in the households that adopted OFSP would be 5.3% more if these households did not adopt OFSP. Our results suggest that immediate replication and scaling up of the Jumpstarting Project in other states in Nigeria should be implemented. This study demonstrates that to ensure the diffusion and adoption of improved technologies such as OFSP, intervention projects that promote the adoption of these technologies have a greater role to play.