Chwele 2009 RCT summary
Independent researchers conducted an RCT for One Acre Fund in 2009, our third year of operation, with the major goals of determining how effective our internal M&E was, and generating program learning early in our history. Our internal M&E results at the time were shown to be substantially different from the RCT results, which led to several important changes to our internal M&E methodology—eventually causing us to restate our impact figures when we had developed confidence in a changed method.
The RCT showed some farmers who had a negative return on investment from farm inputs and also showed some evidence that we were selecting wealthier farmers – both of which were cause for concern and led to program change.