Research conducted in Kenya by researchers from IFPRI, Tegemeo Institute, and the University of Greenwich, demonstrates how tailored extension approaches can accelerate the adoption of bundled financial tools that enhance agricultural productivity growth. The study, published in 2024 in Current Research in Environmental Sustainability, examines risk contingent credit (RCC)–an innovative financial product that combines agricultural loans with weather-based insurance. When farmers take an RCC loan to purchase inputs like seeds and fertilizer, the loan includes built-in insurance protection: if rainfall falls below critical thresholds during the growing season, insurance payouts are automatically triggered to help farmers repay the loan. This protects farmers from defaulting during droughts while providing them access to credit that many lenders would otherwise consider too risky. The research provides compelling evidence that addressing gender inequities in how such innovations are communicated and delivered significantly improves both understanding and uptake of these productivity-enhancing tools.
Why Gender-Inclusive Extension Matters
Women’s contributions to global agriculture are substantial yet systematically undervalued. Despite their significant percentage of the workforce and contributions throughout food systems as producers, processors, and marketers, women farmers face persistent barriers to productive assets, agricultural inputs, extension services, and information.
These gender-related constraints have profound consequences for global agricultural productivity growth. According to FAO’s 2023 Status of Women in Agrifood Systems report, the gender gap in land productivity between female- and male-managed farms of the same size is 24 percent. The same report found that closing the gender gap in farm productivity and agricultural employment wages would increase global gross domestic product by nearly $1 trillion and reduce the number of food-insecure people by 45 million. A 2023 study from Ethiopia found that while women make up more than 50% of the agricultural labor force, they contribute less than 30% to agricultural productivity. These statistics underscore that achieving sustainable productivity growth requires addressing the systemic inequities that limit women farmers’ potential.
Bundling Insurance with Credit
Risk contingent credit (RCC) represents precisely the type of bundled innovation that can power productivity growth. By combining agricultural credit with index insurance, RCC addresses multiple barriers simultaneously–it reduces collateral requirements that often exclude women farmers, protects against climate risks, and potentially increases farm investment. This bundling approach demonstrates the integration of productivity tools with socio-economic mechanisms that the 2024 GAP Report identifies as essential for crossing the Valley of Death between innovation and widespread adoption.
The Power of Inclusive Approaches
The research evaluated three extension approaches among 1,570 households in Eastern Kenya: conventional face-to-face training alone, training plus animated brochures, and training plus animated videos. The results underscore the importance of moving beyond traditional, one-size-fits-all extension methods.
Farmers who received animated brochures demonstrated an 18.1 percentage point increase in product understanding compared to those who received only face-to-face training. This enhanced understanding translated directly into action–these farmers showed a 34.7 percentage point increase in willingness to pay for the RCC product. Crucially, the impact of animated brochures on product understanding was significantly greater among women farmers, with an additional 3.5 percentage point increase compared to men.
Breaking Down Barriers to Productivity Growth
These findings illuminate how social and cultural barriers can impede the adoption of productivity-enhancing tools. Traditional extension services often treat farmers as a homogeneous group, overlooking the differential constraints faced by women farmers – including time limitations, lower literacy rates, and restricted access to information channels. By providing materials that farmers could review at their own pace and in local languages, the animated brochures addressed these specific barriers.
The research reveals that even when innovative financial products are designed to be more inclusive–as RCC is by reducing collateral requirements–their potential impact remains limited without equally inclusive delivery mechanisms. This reinforces the GAP Report’s emphasis that bundling must extend beyond product design to encompass distribution and socio-economic tools that ensure equitable access.
Implications for Accelerating Productivity Growth
This evidence from Kenya offers valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners seeking to accelerate agricultural productivity growth:
First, extension approaches must be reimagined as critical components of innovation bundles. The dramatic difference in outcomes between conventional training and enhanced approaches demonstrates that how we deliver information matters as much as what we deliver.
Second, addressing gender inequities in extension services creates multiplier effects. When women farmers better understand productivity-enhancing tools, they make more informed decisions about adoption, potentially improving household food security and agricultural sustainability. Given the scale of women’s participation in agriculture and the documented productivity gaps, inclusive extension approaches represent a largely untapped opportunity for productivity growth.
Third, relatively simple interventions can yield substantial results. Animated brochures are not high-tech solutions, yet they proved more effective than digital videos in this context. This suggests that appropriate technology–matched to local conditions and user needs–trumps technological sophistication.
Building Bridges Across the Valley of Death
The RCC innovation in Kenya shows how bundling approaches can create bridges across the Valley of Death. The RCC product itself bundles insurance with credit to address multiple barriers. The successful extension approach bundles training with visual materials tailored to different learning needs. Together, these nested bundles demonstrate the systems thinking necessary to achieve meaningful productivity growth.
As the 2024 GAP Report emphasizes, achieving the target 2 percent annual productivity growth rate requires more than technological innovation alone. It demands comprehensive approaches that integrate proven tools with the distribution mechanisms, socio-economic interventions, and inclusive practices necessary to ensure these tools reach and benefit all farmers.
This research provides concrete evidence that investing in gender-inclusive extension approaches yields measurable returns in terms of technology understanding and adoption. For the millions of smallholder farmers who need access to climate risk management tools, such inclusive approaches represent a critical pathway to building resilience and achieving sustainable productivity growth. With women performing substantial agricultural work globally and the potential $1 trillion economic gain from closing gender gaps, the case for gender-inclusive extension has never been stronger.