Impact of farmer research group interventions on maize farmers in Central Rift Valley of Oromia: An empirical study

The project on “strengthening Technology Development, Verification, Transfer and Adoption through Farmers Research Group (FRG)” implemented in the Central Rift-Valley of Oromia from 2004 to 2009 was used to promote and institutionalize participatory research in Ethiopian agricultural research system. A group of farmers were established as maize FRG working on maize improvement in two districts. Hence, this study was initiated with the objective to provide robust evidence for policy makers, donors, farmers, and implementing actors on whether the FRG approach can contribute to household productivity and income. A Cross sectional data were collected from a 180 randomly identified participant and nonparticipants. The empirical result of impact of our estimator indicated that the program increased participant households’ productivity on average by 36%. However, further analysis revealed a positive and insignificant difference for the net income generated from the intervention. Adopting interventions that follow a value chain approach is recommended in order to make the program more comprehensive in bringing significant change not only in the production but also in the subsequent livelihood outcomes. Key words: Farmer research group, central rift-valley, maize, productivity, income, propensity score matching.