Can big push interventions take small-scale farmers out of poverty? Insights from the Sauri Millennium Village in Kenya

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of the Millennium Village Project (MVP) in Sauri, Kenya. We found significant higher agricultural productivity, self-consumption, production margins, and total (surrogate) income, but an insignificant impact on cash income among targeted households, when compared to similar ones in neighboring villages. These outcomes are explained by a large allocation of productivity gains to self-consumption, instead of to the market. Despite showing sizeable effects of the MVP, the results call for revising of the assumptions about the relationship between agricultural productivity and cash income on which the MVP and other rural development interventions rely on.