Summary
Smallholder farmers play an important role in national food self-sufficiency, yet many live in poverty. Investing in inputs to increase yields is therefore often not viable for them. In this study, the authors investigated the impact of providing farmers with a US$ 100 input voucher each season, for five seasons in a row, on maize yields and overall farm-level production in two contrasting locations in terms of population density, Vihiga and Busia, in western Kenya.
The value of farmers’ produce was compared with the poverty line and living income threshold. The study finds that crop yields were mainly limited by cash constraints and not by technological constraints as maize yield immediately increased from 16% to 40–50% of the water-limited yield with the provision of the voucher. The results provide evidence of how a current smallholder farming system could improve its productivity and value of produce upon the introduction of an input voucher.
The results also suggest that increasing yields of crops cannot provide a living income for all households and additional institutional changes are required to provide smallholder farmers a way out of poverty.