The Impact of Sludge Manure Adoption on Crop Yields: Evidence from a Propensity Score Matching Approach.

Abstract

This study examines the impact of sludge manure adoption on household farm production, focusing on matooke (bananas), maize, beans, sweet potatoes, coffee and cassava. We employ a propensity score matching methodology and estimate the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT), and we report the results from the nearest neighbor algorithm and test for robustness using the kernel algorithm. The study uses household survey data collected from the central districts of Uganda between January and February 2023. Our key findings indicate increased and significant yields of bananas, maize, coffee and cassava. These results are similar to those of different estimation algorithms. From a policy perspective, our results suggest that the design of agricultural productivity enhancing programmes, especially for farm households, requires leveraging organic technologies to promote agricultural production.