Participation is not enough: innovation adoption and the performance of maize farms in the Kikwit hinterland (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

Abstract

For a quarter of a century, maize yields in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have stagnated at around 770 kg per hectare while those of neighbouring countries have risen. Drawing on a survey of 158 farm households, including 110 maize producers, in the Kikwit hinterland (Kwilu Province), this paper examines the results chain linking participation in the National Agricultural Development Programme (PNDA), effective adoption of the innovations it promotes, and the productive performance of family farms. The approach combines descriptive statistics and a FAOSTAT benchmark, a Cobb-Douglas production function estimated by ordinary least squares with HC3 robust standard errors, propensity score matching, and a within-beneficiaries comparison. Three quarters of the surveyed farms (75.2%) fall below a national average yield that has itself declined by 3.8% since 2000. The average effect of participation is statistically indistinguishable from zero, whether estimated by matching (+12% to +18%) or by regression (+12.2%). By contrast, the adoption of new crop management practices is associated with a 34% increase in output over the full sample (p < 0.05) and 50.7% within beneficiaries (95% CI: [13.5, 100.0]). The participation-to-adoption conversion corridor is incomplete: only 68.7% of beneficiaries adopted the decisive crop management practices, 51.8% adopted the full package, and maize–mucuna intercropping stalls at 9.6%. Programme effects therefore operate mainly through the effective appropriation of innovations, which calls for systematic adoption indicators and post-diffusion monitoring in PNDA evaluation.