Impact of integrated agricultural research and development on adoption of soil fertility management technologies among smallholder farmers of Southern Africa

This paper sets out to determine the impact of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development in three selected countries of Southern Africa. Agricultural productivity in Southern Africa faces several challenges, of which poor soil fertility strikes out as the priority problem inhibiting increased productivity in farmers’ fields. While several soil fertility management technologies are being promoted in the region, their uptake by smallholder farmers remains very low. In order to mitigate the challenges that African countries are facing in agricultural production, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) through Sub Saharan Africa Challenge Programme (SSA CP) introduced Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) as an institutional innovation designed to promote agricultural productivity through the adoption of appropriate technologies. Two data sets collected through questionnaire survey at the beginning of the SSA CP project and at the end of the project are used in this paper. Local average treatment effect is used to measure the impact of IAR4D on adoption of integrated soil fertility management technologies. Study findings show that after two years of implementing IAR4D, adoption of soil fertility technologies improved in one of the projects being implemented. Otherwise, IAR4D had an insignificant impact on adoption of soil fertility management technologies in all the three participating countries. Local average response functions shows that socioeconomic factors are more important in influencing adoption than participating in research.