seed in Ethiopia and Malawi, 51 and 22 percent, respectively, also planted a local or traditional variety on their farm, showing some degree of on-farm diversification in seed choice, likely due to the diversity in seed attributes demanded by smallholders (Lunduka, Fisher, Snapp 2012). In Niger, the use of improved varieties is very low across staple crops. The percentage of land under an improved variety (grayed column) is the best means of comparison with the DIIVA estimates displayed in Table 2. Niger is the only country of the three for which the LSMS-ISA data do not well-match the DIIVA data.<sup>11</sup> In the other two, we find that about one-third of the area under maize cultivation is seeded with improved varieties.

Then, given the lack of comparable data available to provide a complete picture of improved seed variety use, we also include the percentage of cultivating households that purchased commercial seeds in the given main season. Commercially purchased seeds are not necessarily equivalent to improved seed varieties since households may choose to purchase traditional variety seeds instead or may plant saved improved varieties instead of newly purchased ones. However, a tabulation of commercial seed purchases helps us to better understand the robustness of the commercial seed market and the extent to which households are actively engaging with it in a given agricultural season. Across the board, we find that generally less than one-third of all cultivating households are purchasing a commercial seed for one of these major crops; however, maize seed is generally more likely to be purchased this season than other major crops.

# <u>Agro-chemicals</u>

Questions on agro-chemical use appear differently across surveys. In all countries, we observe whether or not any agro-chemical was applied. However, the binary variables disaggregated by type are more difficult to compare and have implications for potential under-counting. In half of the countries (Ethiopia, Niger, Nigeria), separate questions are asked for each possible type (pesticide, herbicide, fungicide), which should enable a more complete understanding of agrochemical use. In other countries, only the main type (Tanzania and Uganda) or two primary sources (Malawi) are enumerated, meaning a complete picture of agro-chemical use is not possible in these latter three cases. Instead, we show which types were described as most important or most frequently occurring in our data.

We present overall agro-chemical use statistics in Table 9. In general, the percent of cultivating households applying an agro-chemical in the main growing season appears higher than conventional wisdom holds, with over 16 percent of all households applying to their fields in the main cultivating season. These percentages are even higher in Ethiopia and Nigeria, where agrochemicals are used by 30 to 33 percent of cultivators, which are slightly above what is reported in other major studies from our literature review, as shown in Table 3. Further, the statistics we describe are only related to chemicals applied to crops on the field, not those also used in storage. Using the same LSMS-ISA data, Kaminski and Christiaensen (2014) find that 63 percent of maize growing households in Uganda, 49 percent in Tanzania, and 11 percent in Malawi used some form of spraying or smoking of their crops while in storage, suggesting that on-field usage is definitely not exhaustive of the full set of possible chemicals used in African agriculture.

> 11 In Niger, a relatively high percentage of respondents said their seed was from “unspecified sources” (classified here as not improved), which may be the reason for the mismatch.

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