Chemical Pesticides Adoption and Rural Welfare in Cameroon: An Empirical Analysis of Intensity and Timing Effects Using Endogenous Switching Regression and Multinomial Treatment Models
This article conducts an inclusive assessment of the effect of chemical pesticides adoption on rural household welfare in Cameroon. From a multidimensional perspective within the background of the Sen’s capability approach, the study uses cross-sectional rural household-level data collected in 2024 from a randomly selected sample of 920 rural households from 2 of 5 agro-ecological zones in Cameroon. We estimate the causal impact of chemical pesticide adoption by applying endogenous switching regression and multinomial treatment effects models to assess results robustness. This helps us estimate the welfare effect of chemical pesticides adoption by minimizing the bias from the selection problem on pesticides adoption decisions. The results show that the average treatment effect on household welfare with and without adopting chemical pesticides is respectively 0.705 and 0.587. Therefore, adopting chemical pesticides for crop protection helps to improve the welfare level of rural households despite some effects on human health. Compared with households that do not adopt pesticides, the welfare level of households adopting a high or low degree of chemical pesticides increases by 20% and 15%, respectively, and the welfare level of households given the early or late adoption of pesticides increases by 7.30% and 5.9%, respectively. This confirms that chemical pesticides directly improve rural household welfare by significantly raising agricultural income and reducing monetary poverty and food insecurity, though these gains necessitate careful consideration of associated health and environmental costs.
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