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Abstract
Information asymmetry has traditionally constrained smallholder
farmers’ access to markets. Past studies indicate that it contributes to
low adoption of modern agricultural technologies that have the capacity
to enhance the productivity of smallholder farms. Low use of inputs
results in low farm productivity, which curtails the transformation
from subsistence to commercial agriculture, hence perpetuating the
detention of smallholder farmers in the low equilibrium poverty
trap. The desire to improve farmers’ access to markets has seen the
emergence of a number of projects that employ Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) tools in the provision of market
information. However, little is known about the effects of such projects
on smallholder agriculture, particularly in developing countries. The
present study evaluates the impact of participation in an ICT-based
market information service (MIS) project on farm input use (e.g.
fertilizer, purchased seed, purchased manure, pesticides, labour
etc.), labour and land productivity in Kenya. It employs propensity
score-matching technique on cross-sectional data of 375 farmers from
Bungoma, Kirinyaga and Migori counties in Kenya. The study finds
that participation in an ICT-based MIS project has a positive and
significant impact on the quantity of seeds and fertilizers used and
improves land and labour productivity. Specifically, participants in
an ICT-based project spent between Kshs 282.45 and 359.21 and Kshs
952.67 and 1035.10 more than non-participants on purchased seed and
fertilizer per acre, respectively. Additionally, participants in the ICTbased
MIS project have relatively higher land productivity (between
Kshs 7,007.14 and 8,605.84) per acre than non-participants. Participation
in an ICT-based MIS project also increases labour productivity by between Kshs 367.46 and Kshs 406.95 per acre. However, participation
in an ICT-based MIS project has a negative and significant impact on
the use hired, family and total labour. Participants in the ICT-based
project use less labour by between 6.10 and 6.46, 7.95 and 13.49, and
15.68 and 21.96 man-days per acre for hired, family and total labour,
respectively. The study discusses the implications of these findings for
policy.