{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/97475"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/97475","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Impacts of pesticide use practices and gender on cowpea productivity of smallholder farmers in Benin","abstract":"Cowpea has a considerable potential to contribute to the food security and livelihoods of African smallholder farmers. Yet, cowpea yields in Africa are among the lowest in the world and one possible explanation for the yield gap is cowpea’s high vulnerability to insect pest attacks. Pesticides have been widely acknowledged as the most effective method of controlling pests and cowpea farmers often apply them excessively and indiscriminately while continuing to incur drastic yield losses. This paper uses an IV model specification to quantify the impact of pesticide use practices and gender on cowpea productivity in Benin. To obtain true causal estimates for pesticide impacts on productivity, this paper uses the spatial autocorrelation in farmers’ pesticide use data to general spatial lag variables that along with pesticide cost per unit, meet the criteria of valid and relevant instruments in the IV model. Among the key findings of this thesis is that pesticide use has an unambiguous positive impact on cowpea productivity. Despite its positive impact on yield, combining pesticide use with other pesticide use practices leads to mixed results implying that some of farmers’ existing practices may not be appropriate in minimizing crop losses. It is therefore reasonable for policy-makers and other stakeholders to invest resources in educating farmers on appropriate pesticide use practices. Women farmers in Benin have a crucial role in cowpea production both as laborers and decision-makers. Yet, the overall findings appear to point to a gender-based productivity gap in cowpea production that can only partially be explained by women’s pesticide use practices and unequal access to production inputs.","abstract_html":"Cowpea has a considerable potential to contribute to the food security and livelihoods of African smallholder farmers. Yet, cowpea yields in Africa are among the lowest in the world and one possible explanation for the yield gap is cowpea’s high vulnerability to insect pest attacks. Pesticides have been widely acknowledged as the most effective method of controlling pests and cowpea farmers often apply them excessively and indiscriminately while continuing to incur drastic yield losses. This paper uses an IV model specification to quantify the impact of pesticide use practices and gender on cowpea productivity in Benin. To obtain true causal estimates for pesticide impacts on productivity, this paper uses the spatial autocorrelation in farmers’ pesticide use data to general spatial lag variables that along with pesticide cost per unit, meet the criteria of valid and relevant instruments in the IV model. Among the key findings of this thesis is that pesticide use has an unambiguous positive impact on cowpea productivity. Despite its positive impact on yield, combining pesticide use with other pesticide use practices leads to mixed results implying that some of farmers’ existing practices may not be appropriate in minimizing crop losses. It is therefore reasonable for policy-makers and other stakeholders to invest resources in educating farmers on appropriate pesticide use practices. Women farmers in Benin have a crucial role in cowpea production both as laborers and decision-makers. Yet, the overall findings appear to point to a gender-based productivity gap in cowpea production that can only partially be explained by women’s pesticide use practices and unequal access to production inputs.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Horezeanu, Loredana Luisa"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Agricultural & Applied Econ","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Baylis, Katherine","Winter-Nelson, Alex","Donovan, Cynthia","Michelson, Hope"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2017,"date_issued":"2017-08-10T19:16:10Z","date_published":"2017-08-10T19:16:10Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:34Z","subjects":["Pesticide","Pesticide use practices","Cowpea","Legume","Agricultural productivity","Gender","Cowpea yield","Benin","West Africa","Spatial autocorrelation","Instrumental variable"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2017 Loredana Horezeanu"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/97475","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Baylis, Katherine","Winter-Nelson, Alex","Donovan, Cynthia","Michelson, Hope"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Horezeanu, Loredana Luisa"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2017-08-10T19:16:10Z","2017-04-27","2017-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Agricultural & Applied Econ"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Pesticide","Pesticide use practices","Cowpea","Legume","Agricultural productivity","Gender","Cowpea yield","Benin","West Africa","Spatial autocorrelation","Instrumental variable"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2017 Loredana Horezeanu"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/97475"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Cowpea has a considerable potential to contribute to the food security and livelihoods of African smallholder farmers. Yet, cowpea yields in Africa are among the lowest in the world and one possible explanation for the yield gap is cowpea’s high vulnerability to insect pest attacks. Pesticides have been widely acknowledged as the most effective method of controlling pests and cowpea farmers often apply them excessively and indiscriminately while continuing to incur drastic yield losses. This paper uses an IV model specification to quantify the impact of pesticide use practices and gender on cowpea productivity in Benin. To obtain true causal estimates for pesticide impacts on productivity, this paper uses the spatial autocorrelation in farmers’ pesticide use data to general spatial lag variables that along with pesticide cost per unit, meet the criteria of valid and relevant instruments in the IV model. Among the key findings of this thesis is that pesticide use has an unambiguous positive impact on cowpea productivity. Despite its positive impact on yield, combining pesticide use with other pesticide use practices leads to mixed results implying that some of farmers’ existing practices may not be appropriate in minimizing crop losses. It is therefore reasonable for policy-makers and other stakeholders to invest resources in educating farmers on appropriate pesticide use practices. Women farmers in Benin have a crucial role in cowpea production both as laborers and decision-makers. Yet, the overall findings appear to point to a gender-based productivity gap in cowpea production that can only partially be explained by women’s pesticide use practices and unequal access to production inputs.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2017-08-10 without embargo terms","The student, Loredana Horezeanu, accepted the attached license on 2017-04-25 at 14:01.","The student, Loredana Horezeanu, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2017-04-25 at 14:19.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2017-04-27 at 17:02.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11049 on 2017-08-10 at 13:46:28","Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-10T19:16:10Z (GMT). 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Pesticides have been widely acknowledged as the most effective method of controlling pests and cowpea farmers often apply them excessively and indiscriminately while continuing to incur drastic yield losses. This paper uses an IV model specification to quantify the impact of pesticide use practices and gender on cowpea productivity in Benin. To obtain true causal estimates for pesticide impacts on productivity, this paper uses the spatial autocorrelation in farmers’ pesticide use data to general spatial lag variables that along with pesticide cost per unit, meet the criteria of valid and relevant instruments in the IV model. Among the key findings of this thesis is that pesticide use has an unambiguous positive impact on cowpea productivity. Despite its positive impact on yield, combining pesticide use with other pesticide use practices leads to mixed results implying that some of farmers’ existing practices may not be appropriate in minimizing crop losses. It is therefore reasonable for policy-makers and other stakeholders to invest resources in educating farmers on appropriate pesticide use practices. Women farmers in Benin have a crucial role in cowpea production both as laborers and decision-makers. Yet, the overall findings appear to point to a gender-based productivity gap in cowpea production that can only partially be explained by women’s pesticide use practices and unequal access to production inputs.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2017-08-10 without embargo terms","The student, Loredana Horezeanu, accepted the attached license on 2017-04-25 at 14:01.","The student, Loredana Horezeanu, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2017-04-25 at 14:19.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2017-04-27 at 17:02.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11049 on 2017-08-10 at 13:46:28","Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-10T19:16:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 HOREZEANU-THESIS-2017.pdf: 1482015 bytes, checksum: 5a0d23b5b1c37d5486092f3102dd7213 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4215 bytes, checksum: a1d226097420c20174ba9f7c0d810fe2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-04-27"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/97475"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2017 Loredana Horezeanu"],"dc:subject":["Pesticide","Pesticide use practices","Cowpea","Legume","Agricultural productivity","Gender","Cowpea yield","Benin","West Africa","Spatial autocorrelation","Instrumental variable"],"dc:title":["Impacts of pesticide use practices and gender on cowpea productivity of smallholder farmers in Benin"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Agricultural & Applied Econ"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.S."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:34Z"}