Weather Index Insurance and Input Intensification: Evidence from Smallholder Farmers in Kenya

作者：Price Amanya Muleke, Yueqing Ji, Yao Fu, Shadrack Kipkogei · 发表于：Sustainability · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3390/su17115206 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Agricultural risk and resilience、Insurance and Financial Risk Management、Climate change impacts on agriculture

Climate variability intensifies weather risks across smallholder rainfed farming systems in Africa. Farmers often respond by minimizing the use of modern inputs and opting for low-cost traditional practices, a strategy that decreases average yields and perpetuates poverty. While crop insurance could incentivize greater adoption of inputs, indemnity-based programs face market failures. Weather index insurance (WII), which utilizes objective weather data to trigger payouts while addressing traditional crop insurance market failures, is a viable solution. However, empirical evidence on the impact of WII remains limited, with most studies relying on controlled experiments or hypothetical scenarios that overlook real-world adoption dynamics. This study analyzed observational data from 400 smallholder farmers across diverse agroecological zones in Njoro Sub-County, Kenya, using instrumental variable regression to evaluate the impact of weather index insurance (WII) on input adoption and intensity of use. Findings indicated that WII significantly increased the adoption and intensification of improved inputs while displacing traditional practices, with effects moderated by gender, financial access, and infrastructure. Specifically, active WII users applied 28.7 kg/acre more chemical fertilizer and used 2.6 kg/acre more hybrid maize seeds while reducing manure and traditional seed usage by 27 kg/acre and 2.9 kg/acre, respectively. However, the effectiveness of WII was context-dependen...