Ecuador and several other Andean countries have prioritized the establishment and strengthening of agricultural insurance markets for smallholder farmers at risk of poverty. At the request of the Ecuadorian government, we recently explored whether index insurance would more effectively protect...

Risk management and resilience are becoming a focus for how to support and empower agricultural households who are vulnerable to weather-related shocks. Index insurance has shown tremendous promise where conventional agricultural insurance is not possible or cost-effective, but this promise can...

An agricultural index insurance contract’s quality is hidden. On its surface, farmers considering a policy or national governments seeking to subsidize coverage have no way to know whether a product has the potential to provide real value. 

In an experimental game in Tanzania, we tested how a small individual collateral requirement would affect the decision to borrow and individual effort under a group loan. A 20-percent collateral increased individual effort and repayment while reducing the number of farmers who take loans. The...

Livestock—the principal store of wealth and source of livelihood for pastoralists living in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) of the Horn of Africa— face tremendous risk from the frequent and catastrophic droughts that plague the region.

Households in developing rural economies face a multitude of risks. When financial alternatives are limited, in the face of disaster, households typically turn to two coping strategies: reduction of assets to smooth consumption, or reduction of consumption to protect assets. Both of these...

Some development programs are designed on the premise that they can trigger lasting changes in poverty or food security. An intervention in eastern Uganda to increase the use of improved seed varieties and basic farming practices among women smallholders was phased out after four years due to a...

Agricultural extension promotes improved inputs and more productive farming practices, which could boost food security and reduce poverty in developing countries. We evaluated how a large-scale agricultural extension program for smallholder women farmers in Uganda impacted food security....

Since 2006, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) have developed drought-tolerant maize (DTM) varieties to address a widespread risk of drought in Sub-Saharan Africa. From 2014-2018, MRR Innovation Lab...

Drought-tolerant seeds are designed to protect farmers from moderate, mid-season drought, but can still fail when conditions are severe. In Tanzania and Mozambique the project paired drought-tolerant maize (DTM) with index insurance designed to protect farmers when even drought-tolerant...