are displayed in table 6. Receipt of PSG resources is estimated to have increased 2023 summer crop area significantly although with 0.17 ha, i.e., less than 2%, estimated effect size remains modest.

Regressions point to heterogeneity in three respects. First, PSG support seems to have been most effective within 50 km of the ‘front’, defined as the border to ineligible conflict-affected areas, where the estimated coefficient increases to 0.743 while coefficients on PSG access in areas mor distant from the front remain insignificant. PSG impacts also seem to vary by farm size and organization: Program grants are estimated to have been highly significant impact (coefficient of 0.081) for the smallest farm size group who may be most constrained in terms of accessing other sources of support and marginal (coefficient of 0.71, significant at 10%) for the largest farm size group. Estimated PSG impacts are highly significant for FOPs (coefficient of 0.38) while being less significant (0.09, significant at 5%) for small and marginally significant for farms in the 50-120 ha category (0.317, significant at 10%).

The timing of PSG resource disbursement in December of 2022 allows us to use the area cultivated with winter crops as a placebo treatment to check if there are any unobserved differences between the two groups that may have affected outcomes independently from the receipt of PSG funds. To do so, we run (1) replacing _Yit_ with area under winter crops and in i , include weather variables and their squares for three (planting, dormancy, and growing) instead of two phases of plant development, and set the cut-off for GDD XX at 0°C instead of 5°C. Table 6 shows all coefficients in the relevant regressions are insignificant, suggesting that treatment and control groups were not affected differently by the war in other systematic ways.

# **5. Conclusion and policy implications**

We find that mandatory use of a farmer registry with a spatial element allows not only quick implementation and transparent targeting of cash transfers in a conflict setting with low administrative capacity and a long history of endemic corruption, but also use of satellite imagery to assess farm-level impacts on aspects of land use that can be observed remotely.

While <mark>we find a positive overall impact of the</mark> support to bridge working capital gaps, estimated effects are modest overall and largest close to the frontline and for the smallest farm size group. Beyond showing the usefulness of evaluating interventions in real time using administrative data, this suggests that, even with an ongoing conflict, needs and the most effective responses may differ by location and farm type. A similar package of working capital support may be appropriate close to the frontline and possibly even in areas officially classified as affected by hostilities. In areas farther from the frontline, working capital support as provided under PSG may be insufficient to offset the drop in grain and oilseed profitability and use of grant resources to leverage access to investment credit may offer farms in the size group targeted by the PSG a better chance to diversify into higher value products in line with their factor endowments. <mark>Combined with</mark> 15