Abstract
The adoption of improved crop varieties across rural communities is especially useful in contexts like sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where food insecurity and climate change are pronounced. Farmer social networks are increasingly viewed as crucial mechanisms for enhancing technology adoption in SSA and elsewhere. However, rigorous estimates of the impacts of farmer social networks on the adoption of improved rice varieties remain limited in SSA. This study responds to this gap by applying an endogenous treatment regression technique to survey data from 624 rice farmers across rural Sierra Leone, to estimate the effects of farmer social networks on the adoption of improved rice varieties in the country. The approach accounts for endogeneity of farmer social interaction and selection bias associated with improved rice varietal adoption. We found that the farmer social network has positive and statistically significant effects on the adoption of improved rice varieties by 13%. Heterogeneity analyses show that there was a higher adoption rate among farmers who interacted more with other farmers in farmers' organisations compared to other avenues such as community-wide organizations, formal learning institutions, and contacts with master farmers. Our results suggest that farmer-to-farmer interaction can serve as a useful tool in the diffusion of improved rice varieties in Sierra Leone. More broadly, this research demonstrates that farmer social interactions can enhance the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially food security (SDG 2), through improved rice production in Sierra Leone and similar contexts elsewhere.