Tree Seedling RCT: endline report

One Acre Fund (1AF) has been supporting smallholder farmers in Kenya through the
provision of agricultural training and financing since 2006. The financing component
involves providing farmers with farm inputs on credit at the time of planting, who then make
repayments to 1AF in installments over the season. The inputs primarily constitute a core
package that contains improved maize seeds, bean seeds, fertilizer and a range of add-on
products such as solar lights, vegetable seeds, improved crop storage bags, cook stoves, and
sanitary pads.

In 2010, 1AF introduced a Tree Program to their core loan package with the aim of
increasing the client farmers’ tree assets as a source of extra income from their sale.
The Tree Program contains grevillea seeds, planting fertilizer, large planting the seeds,
smaller planting bags for raising individual seedlings once they are big enough, and a set of
trainings specifically on tree planting and maintenance.

Laterite was contracted by 1AF in 2018 to undertake a randomized control trial (RCT) to evaluate the impact of the Tree Program in the Kericho and Uasin Gishu counties1 of Kenya, where 1AF expanded their program in the 2019 long rains season. The expansion of 1AF operations into new areas of Kenya gave a unique opportunity for an impact evaluation
that is not compromised to pre-exposure to the program. Laterite was responsible for all stages of the impact evaluation, from design through data collection, data cleaning, analysis and reporting.