世界银行-变革的种子：埃塞俄比亚直接种子营销方式对小农种子购买和生产力的影响（英）

Policy Research Working Paper11078Seeds of ChangeThe Impact of Ethiopia’s Direct Seed Marketing Approach on Smallholders’ Seed Purchases and Productivity Dawit MekonnenGashaw T. AbateSeid YimamRui BenficaDavid J. SpielmanFrank PlaceDevelopment Economics Prospects GroupMarch 2025 Public Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedProduced by the Research Support TeamAbstractThe Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.Policy Research Working Paper 11078Several factors contribute to the limited use of improved seed varieties in Ethiopia. Among those, on the supply side, is the restricted availability of seeds in the volume, quality, and timeliness required by farmers, partly due to inadequate public and private investment in the sector. Beginning in 2011, the Government of Ethiopia introduced a novel experiment—the direct seed marketing approach—to reduce some of the centralized, state-run attributes of the country’s seed market and rationalize the use of public resources. Direct seed marketing was designed to incen-tivize private and public seed producers to sell directly to farmers rather than through the state apparatus. This study is the first quantitative evaluation of the impact of direct seed marketing on indicators of a healthy seed system: access to quality seeds and farm-level productivity. Using a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences approach suit-able to handling variation in treatment timing, the study finds that direct seed marketing led to an increase of 15 percentage points in the proportion of farmers purchas-ing maize seed, an increase of 45 percent in the quantity of maize seed purchased per hectare, and an increase of 18 percent in maize yield. However, there are differences across crops, with the effects of direct seed marketing on wheat seed purchases and yields being statistically insignif-icant. These crop-specific differences in performance are likely explained by differences in the reproductive biology of maize (particularly maize hybrids) and wheat, which tend to incentivize commercial activity in hybrid maize seed markets more than in self-pollinating wheat or open-pol-linated maize markets. These differences suggest a need for nuanced policy responses, institutional arrangements, and market development strategies to acceler