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In many markets, consumers believe things about products that are not true. We study how incorrect beliefs about product quality can persist even after a consumer has used a product many times. We explore the example of fertilizer in East Africa. Farmers believe much local fertilizer is counterfeit or adulterated; however, multiple studies have established that nearly all fertilizer in the area is good quality. We develop a learning model to explain how these incorrect beliefs persist. We show that when the distributions of outcomes using good and bad quality products overlap, agents can misattribute bad luck or bad management to bad quality. Our learning model and its simulations show that the presence of misattribution inhibits learning about quality and that goods like fertilizer with unobservable quality that are inputs into production processes characterized by stochasticity should be thought of as credence goods, not experience goods. Our results suggest that policy makers should pursue quality assurance programs for products that are vulnerable to misattribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of black soldier fly (BSF) larvae and frass in agriculture can make an important contribution to food and nutrition security. However, it is important to understand whether consumers are willing to consume food products resulting from the use of BSF larvae as animal feed or BSF frass as fertilizer. This study employed the stated preference approach as food products produced using BSF larvae and frass are not currently available on the market. Questionnaires were administered to a total of 4412 consumers in Ghana (1360), Mali (1603), and Niger (1449). The results show that the vast majority of respondents are willing to consume vegetables (88%) produced using BSF frass and meat (87%) produced using animal feed made of BSF larvae. A smaller percentage of respondents are even willing to pay USD 1.32 and USD 1.7 more if the base price of BSF-based products were USD 5 per kg. Age, gender, education, and country positively influenced the respondents' willingness to consume food produced using BSF products. In contrast, neighborhood status, income, and household size are inversely related to the respondents' willingness to pay for and consume these products. Our findings are, therefore, important to scaling up BSF technologies in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing agricultural productivity by promoting high-yielding and micronutrient-rich crop varieties has the potential to reduce poverty and malnutrition. However, getting these technologies into the hands of smallholders remains a challenge. This paper presents results from a randomised field experiment that uses rural primary schools as dissemination hubs for improved orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) vines and nutrition information in rural Tanzania and Uganda. Two years after the initial vine distribution, we find that households in treatment villages are 21 percentage points more likely to report growing OFSP and 27 percentage points more likely to correctly state the nutritional benefits of OFSP compared to those in control villages. We also find up to 16 percentage point increase in the likelihood of OFSP consumption by children under 5 years of age in treatment villages compared to that in control villages. Furthermore, we find suggestive evidence that increased knowledge on the nutritional benefits of OFSP mediated up to a third of the total treatment effect on OFSP adoption and consumption. Our findings suggest that rural primary schools can be effective channels for promoting and accelerating the diffusion of micronutrient-rich crop varieties in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]