OP-7: Number of farm households reached with material technology packages

Owned by Enrico Bonaiuti
May 05, 2020
3 min read

Definition: This indicator measures only households reached with material technologies, e.g planting material/seed, breeds of improved livestock, water harvesting equipment e.t.c. Households reached through training for purposes of adopting knowledge-driven technologies and innovations are counted under OP-4. If a household receives both the material technology packages and training, then it would have to be counted both in OP-4, and OP-8, with all individuals in the household counted in the former, but a household counted once even when more than one member of the household receive the material technology package (by type).
There are two generic delivery channels for distributing material technology packages:

  1. Direct channel: Delivery under the direct influence/control of ICARDA staff and/or contracted partners.

  2. Indirect channel: Distribution of technology packages occurs without direct control of ICARDA and/or contracted partners' staff but the technology package is a result of ICARDA work;

    The indirect channel constitutes of 3 sub-channels i.e.

  3. Farmer-to-farmer diffusion- with or without monetary or in-kind payment;

  4. Market purchases from designated/licenced/recognized sources e.g. agro-input dealers; seed producers;

  5. Government or other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as part of a public support program. The Government or NGOs may provide the support free of monetary payments by the recipients, involve credit (payment at a future date), or contractual pass-on system to other farmers/households.

Unit of Measure: Count

Disaggregated by: Technology package, Gender of the household head or farm plot (Male, Female), Geographic location (national, sub-national)
Technology package: Improved seed of ICARDA mandated crops, Improved breeds of ICARDA mandated livestock, water technologies (water harvesting technologies, irrigation technologies,….).
If crop:
Crops: Crop (Chickpea, Lentil, Faba beans, grass pea, Spring Barley, Winter barley, Durum wheat, Spring Bread wheat, Other)
Variety
Planting material/seed category: Certified, Truthfully labelled, Quality guaranteed
If livestock:
Livestock: Type (Goats, sheep, cattle)
Breed
Improved trait: (Resistance to parasites and diseases, milk production, meat production, resistance to adverse climatic conditions,…)

Method of Calculation: Summation of households. A household that receives more than one technology package can be counted for each technology package.

Data sources:
Direct delivery system: Records of distribution events
Indirect delivery system: Farm household, Next-user organizations (NARS, private sector companies e.t.c)

Data collection method:
Direct delivery system: Recording of recipients
Indirect delivery system: Farm household surveys, Input market surveys; Interviews with next-user organization staff; Review of next-user organization records.

Data collection and reporting responsibility: Program leaders, project leaders (PLs), country managers, project M&E focal points

Data Collection and Reporting Frequency:
Direct delivery system: Every agricultural season
Indirect delivery system: 2 to 4 agricultural seasons. Preferably every two agricultural seasons for crops with one cultivation cycle in a year, and 4 agricultural seasons for crops with more than one cropping season in a year.

Evidence required:
Direct delivery system: Planting material/seed/livestock distribution records
Indirect delivery system: Next-user records, Key informant interview transcripts; study protocol, data collection tools, request for proposals (RFP) document/ToR, inception report, dataset, data analysis notes/summary/do-files, final report

Rationale: Reaching farmers directly or indirectly with material technology packages is a prerequisite for adoption to take place and for scaling-up and scaling-out agricultural technologies. This indicator therefore measures both the direct and the indirect reach of ICARDA-origin agricultural technology packages.

Comments and limitations:
This indicator is prone to multiple counting of farm households. Often individuals from the same household may: 1) Obtain planting material technology packages (e.g crop seed/livestock breeds) from the same source during the same agricultural season, 2) Obtain material technology packages from different sources for the same agricultural season; or 3) Obtain material technology packages the same or different sources across agricultural seasons. Data collection and analyses should be designed to detect and account for multiple counting, as a way of determining the accurate unique number of households reached and the intensity and imlications of multiple reach.