Lesson Learned

The randomized roll-out evaluation approach has risks. In a randomized roll-out approach, a first round of treatment farmers is compared to a control group of farmers that receive training at a later date.

The randomized roll-out evaluation approach has risks. In a randomized roll-out approach, a first round of treatment farmers is compared to a control group of farmers that receive training at a later date. The key to this approach is that there be enough time between the two phases to see behavior change and the accrual of benefits for the first farmers before the second round of farmers is trained. Timelines for farmer adoption of new practices, the five-year compact timeline and inevitable implementation delays can make a randomized roll-out a very risky approach. In the case of Ghana, the randomized roll-out resulted in training the control group before the end of the compact, allowing only one crop cycle between the first treatment and the incorporation of the controls. Given the loss of the counterfactual, it is not possible to estimate the causal impact of the training on outcomes with additional crop cycles.