Research Project (Ongoing)

An empirical research on the impact of the SHEP approach on small-scale farmers

The “SHEP Approach" was developed in Technical Cooperation Projects between Kenya and Japan. Through project activities, farmers were encouraged to change their mind-sets from “grow and sell" (cultivating crops without understanding how the agriculture products are sold in the market), to “grow to sell" (providing products based on the market demand). As a result of the SHEP, average income (nominal) among beneficiary farmers was estimated to have doubled from 22,794 Ksh in 2006 to 47,131 Ksh in 2009.

However, robust impact evaluation has not been conducted. Therefore, there is a room for further clarification on the impact of the SHEP Approach separately from external factors, such as macroeconomic growth, climate conditions, and which components of the SHEP Approach were attributed to the increment of the average income. Thus, the impact assessment of the SHEP Approach is to be carried out in accordance with the implementation of SHEP PLUS.

To clarify the effects of SHEP Approach rigorously, JICA started to evaluate the impact of SHEP PLUS from 2015.