Provision of pest alerts is associated with better farm performance in Africa.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Crop pests cause substantial crop yield and economic losses, food insecurity, and negative impacts on human health and environment globally. Timely provision of pest risk alerts - that is, the optimum time to intervene against key pests before invasion or establishment - to smallholder farmers on pest management could improve farm performance. However, there is little quantitative evidence testing this hypothesis.

Results

To address this gap, we use primary survey data from over 4000 smallholder farmers across four African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia. Our results suggest that providing pest alerts to smallholder farmers is associated with a higher probability of adopting integrated pest management (IPM) practices by 8-32 percentage points, as well

SUBMITTER: Khonje MG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12713714 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature