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A machine learning tool to estimate net annual income of cocoa and coffee farming households

Countries
Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Ethiopia
Status
Ongoing
Duration
February 2022 – Ongoing
Funder

What is the income of farming households and does it afford a decent living standard? This is a key question to answer in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of interventions seeking to improve livelihoods of farmers at the starting points of global supply chains such as cocoa and coffee. The answer requires primary data collection using structured household surveys. Large-scale household surveys, however, are elaborate, costly, and time-consuming, which can make them restrictive in some cases.

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Data science can help answer this question. KIT’s Monitoring and Evaluation for Social Impact team has worked on prototyping a machine learning model to estimate the net income of cocoa and coffee growing households in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Ethiopia. The team mined KIT’s data archives on crop production and income. Using these data and our experience with the drivers of farmer’s income to select and test variables for predictive model. We trained a machine learning model on farm location, household size, and crop production—simple variables known to influence net household income. In its prototype state, the model has shown great accuracy (with a root-mean-square error < $10USD in the testing dataset) and, therefore, potential for application.

The goal of our data science services for living income work is to make monitoring and evaluation of household income cost-effective and scalable. With our sound method for monitoring and evaluation and machine learning model, we offer an approach that improves its performance with use and frees up resources to design pathways to close the income gap using, for example, segmented approaches.

Are you interested in using machine learning in your living income project? Contact our advisors.

Related Work

  • Pathways for closing the income gap for cocoa farming households in Côte d’Ivoire, a segmented approach

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    In 2015, Nestlé launched a program focusing on the ‘better-off farmers’, called the Elite Farmer program. The ‘elite farmers’ were hand-picked from ordinary farmers in villages, based on a number of selection criteria, and intensively trained and coached. The aim was to empower elite farmers to unleash their potential, both in cocoa production and in […]

  • Demystifying the Cocoa Sector in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire

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    This major study aims to contribute to the cocoa sector’s body of knowledge and provide a solid evidence base to test common assumptions and beliefs.  The research covers issues such as household demographics, food security and nutrition, and crop choices and crop diversification. Specific to cocoa, the study investigates why households grow cocoa, and analyses […]

  • Guidance manual on calculating and visualizing income gap to a Living Income Benchmark

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    The Living Income Community of Practice (LICoP) has identified the need for guidance to support researchers and practitioners in assessing the gap between actual farming household incomes and estimates of the Living Income Benchmark in a particular location The Living Income Benchmark is the net income required for a basic, but decent, standard of living. […]

  • Unleashing the Potential of Cocoa Households to Earn a Living Income

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    The Nestlé Cocoa Plan (NCP) Elite programme aims to unleash the potential of a small selection of cocoa farmers and learn from them about how the programme can be expanded to help more farmers earn a living income. KIT assists Nestlé in understanding how successful this programme currently is and how it can be scaled up. Earning a living income is elusive for most cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire  Only a small segment of cocoa-growing households in Côte d’Ivoire earn a living income. […]

  • Nestlé Income Accelerator Program

    • Institute
    • News

    We are a proud partner in Nestlé’s new Income Accelerator program, which was announced today. This innovative intervention aims to tackle child labour, decrease poverty, promote diversification and push for more gender equality. Under the scheme, the company will transfer cash to around 160,000 farmer families in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, two of the most important cocoa-producing […]

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Services Delivered

  • Data Science & Products

    At KIT, we use rigorous methodologies and a combination of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and innovative data sources to help our clients and partners use evidence to learn, improve, and make better-informed decisions. Our Data Science & Products service offering is built on three core elements:

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