G²LM|LIC - Taming Counterfeits Markets with Consumer Information

The project aimed to study whether an information campaign to improve Kenyan farmers’ ability to detect quality of agricultural inputs—such as seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides was able to help: increase usage of techniques to verify seed quality, increase adoption of quality-verified seeds, increase the quality of seeds available in the local market, and improve agricultural outcomes A field experiment was carried out in which randomly selected markets received community-wide trainings to help local farmers identify government-certified seeds. The dataset makes reference to “treated” households, which are households that were sampled from market areas that were selected for treatment, and therefore reside within 1 kilometer from the market center. The researchers examined differential impacts on female-headed versus male-headed households, potential mechanisms through information-sharing networks, and implications of the results for closing the gender gap in productivity.