ABSTRACT

One of the challenges in evaluating the impact of agronomy training programs, particularly on downstream impacts such as yield, is identifying a sample of farmers who are likely to participate in the training. We assess farmers’ participation in a farm business training activity before the agronomy training intervention as a sample identification mechanism. The screening activity was designed to appeal to the same group of farmers targeted by a coffee agronomy training program, while having minimal impact on the program’s goal of increasing coffee yields. A three-session training on farm business management was conducted in 22 study villages in central Uganda. Coffee agronomy training was then offered in half of these villages, based on random assignment. The results show that 52% of coffee farmers who attended the first business training session subsequently attended agronomy training, compared to 22% of those identified through a census. Applying these results to the design of a large ongoing randomised controlled trial, we find that using a self-selected sample reduces the minimum detectable effect of agronomy training on coffee yield to 15.83%, compared to 38% if population-based sampling were used.

摘要

评估农艺培训计划的影响（特别是产量等下游影响）的挑战之一是确定可能参加培训的农民样本。我们在农艺培训干预之前评估农民参与农场经营培训活动的情况，作为样本识别机制。筛选活动旨在吸引咖啡农学培训计划所针对的同一组农民，同时对该计划提高咖啡产量的目标影响最小。在乌干达中部 22 个研究村举办了为期三期的农场企业管理培训。随后，根据随机分配，在一半的村庄中提供了咖啡农学培训。结果显示，参加第一次商业培训课程的咖啡农中有 52% 随后参加了农学培训，而通过人口普查确定的咖啡农比例为 22%。将这些结果应用到一项正在进行的大型随机对照试验的设计中，我们发现使用自选样本可将农学培训对咖啡产量的最小可检测效果降低至 15.83%，而使用基于人群的抽样则为 38%。