No.52 How Signboards on the Trained Farmers’ Plot Facilitate Farmer-to-Farmer Extension (F2FE): A New Approach to Remove Demand-Side Constraints from Rice Management Training in Rainfed Mozambique

Low agricultural productivity and persistent yield gaps continue to constrain food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Supply-side interventions such as agricultural training and demonstration plots enhance adoption of improved rice management practices but are often costly and fail to reach spatially isolated farmers. Farmer-to-farmer extension (F2FE) is a cost-effective alternative promoting social learning, but its effectiveness is constrained when non-trained farmers cannot easily identify trained peers. Conventional approaches provide monetary or non-monetary incentives to trained farmers, but such schemes can be costly and difficult to sustain. This study introduces a new demand-side approach by setting up signboards on trained farmers' plots, displaying the farmer's name, contact details, and practices used, enabling other farmers to identify trained peers and seek information directly. Using a balanced panel of 219 farmers across 16 associations in rainfed Mozambique, we apply Propensity Score Matching Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID), supported by PSM with Rosenbaum bounds and Inverse Probability Weighting DID (IPW-DID), to estimate the effect of noticing signboards on farming outcomes. Results show that non-signboard farmers who noticed signboards were more likely to adopt improved practices, increasing paddy yield by 302-387 kg/ha (33-43% of non-notice mean) and paddy income by 6,770-8,737 MZN/ha (37-48% of non-notice mean). Signboards also reduced dis-adoption among farmers. However, unlike direct training at demo plots, which raised adoption across all recommended practices, signboard notice enhanced adoption selectively. These findings highlight the potential and limitation of a simple and low-cost demand-side mechanism to strengthen F2FE and improve productivity in resource-constrained farming systems.

Keywords: Technology adoption, Agricultural extension, Rice farming