I presented my job market paper on measurement error in yields and seed adoption data at the 20th Midwest International Economic Development Conference (MWIEDC) at the University of Houston. The MWIEDC was a great opportunity to connect with Purdue alumni, meet researchers from all over the US (and the World), and learn about other exciting work on various topics in Economic Development. 

My advisor Professor Jacob Ricker-Gilbert and I spent the second week of February disseminating the results from our study on aflatoxin contamination in smallholder farmers’ maize in upper eastern Kenya. We met with and presented our results to officials and stakeholders in Meru and Tharaka-Nithi counties, stakeholders and policymakers in Nairobi at KALRO HQ, and Chuka University faculty and students. Our results shed light on the current situation in counties that are aflatoxin hotspots and I hope that we contributed to the ongoing discussions on how to ensure a more food safe and secure future for smallholder farmers. You can read our policy brief here, and we also made the news! 

Just one month after getting out of the field, I presented our preliminary results from the randomized controlled trial in Kenya at the 2022 AAEA Annual Meeting in Anaheim, CA. Next steps: diving deeper into the data, finalizing my job market paper, and going on the job market!

It's a wrap! In June we completed our third and final wave of data collection. Just like during Follow-up 1 survey, we revisited our farmers in 240 villages across Meru and Tharaka-Nithi counties in Kenya. We also collected maize samples from storage and tested them in our makeshift aflatoxin lab. Now it is time to focus on analyzing the data and finalizing my dissertation... so I will be on the job market in the 22/23 school year! 

On a personal note, working on this project enabled me to live in Kenya for more than 8 months in the past 2 years and, more importantly, to lead the fieldwork and learn and grow from doing it. Altogether, this was an invaluable experience on my path to becoming a researcher. 

Another 5 weeks in the field and we finally have the first batch of follow-up data in! We collected more than 1,800 maize samples from our farmers during harvest time, we tested the samples for aflatoxin contamination, and we can tell that we have some interesting findings already! Gearing up for the final round of data collection, we will finish just in time to present our preliminary results at the 2022 AAEA Annual Meeting in Anaheim, CA!

After so many delays due to Covid-19, I was finally able to collect baseline data in upper eastern Kenya for my two dissertation essays. During 5+ weeks of data collection we visited 240 villages, surveyed 1,920 and distributed agricultural inputs to 1,440 smallholder maize-farming households. The inputs are intended to decrease aflatoxin levels in maize, and we will be testing their (cost-) effectiveness during upcoming follow-up surveys in early Spring and Summer 2022.

I had an opportunity to present my third dissertation essay on measurement error in technology adoption and its effect on household welfare at the 2021 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting in Austin, TX. Attending and presenting in person was surreal. I am very thankful to those who took their time to attend my presentation and who engaged in discussion. The comments I received will be instrumental in pushing this work forward.

I was a guest in Dr. Meirer's podcast, where my co-author Dr. Babak Ravandi and I discussed our research article and food waste in the developed world. We also talked about our experience of developing, writing, and publishing an interdisciplinary research article as two PhD students. You can find our article here or you can email me at njovano@purdue.edu for full version.