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EPAR

Category: Editorial

EPAR Updates

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We are excited to announce our new blog category called EPAR Updates, where we will share periodic updates of publicly available outputs and alumni transitions (so keep us informed at uw.eparx@gmail.com).  

DATA & CODE

General Updates:

  • A new version of AgQuery Plus has been released, with indicators across 5 countries (Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda) totaling 26 survey waves.
  • Our Github repository received 33 clones in the last two weeks from May 3 to May 16, 2025 (Figure 1).
  • Nigeria Wave 5 is completed.
  • New indicators:
    • Fertilizer application that decomposes by identity of input (e.g., urea, superphosphate, or potash) and nutrient (N, P, and/or K) with kg/ha application rates.
    • Irrigation where available (yes/no by plot and proportion/hectares of coverage by household).
    • Plot decisionmaker gender has been amended to include the gender of the primary (or first-listed) plot decisionmaker.
    • Food consumption score (FCS) has been added to dietary diversity.
  • Modifications
    • Crop prices are now estimated based on the median price of the smallest administrative unit where at least 10 price observations are available. Previously, we used household-level prices when present and median prices otherwise. The old indicator is now known as “value_harvest_hh.”
    • Yield has been overhauled to omit plots where there is an indication from farmer reports that harvest has not yet occurred, but crops have not been lost (these were previously recorded as 0).
    • Household dietary diversity has been updated to align with the INDDEX methodology.
    • Gender productivity has been modified to use field size (a combination of GPS-measured plot area and farmer-estimated area when the former is unavailable).
Figure 1: Github clones in May

Wave-Specific Updates

  • Ethiopia
    • An error where GPS-measured estimates were being replaced by farmer estimates for field size has been corrected.
    • Added indicators for approximating the Multidimensional Poverty Index.
    • Added estimated unit conversions for some nonstandard units to improve kg conversion coverage.
  • Uganda
    • Files have been trimmed to clear out old or unnecessary code.
    • Documentation has been added.
    • The nonstandard unit conversion factors have been consolidated into a single table.
    • Yields are now omitted from the final summary statistics for waves 7 and 8 due to uncertainties around plot area; some plot areas were omitted in the data if the plot was measured in the previous wave; because wave 6 was not released, we do not have these measurements and the yields are uncertain. Existing code still uses areas from wave 5 to construct estimates.
    • Use of improved seed has been added.
  • Tanzania
    • Fully updated plot roster section to align with other LSMS ISA country code, mainly in waves 1 and 2.
    • Modified plot productivity to use area median observed prices with household estimated prices only when the former were unavailable; prior code used the estimated value of the crops to compute prices.
    • Modified yield code to count plots that were not harvested at survey time to be missing rather than 0.
    • Aligned the SDD and fifth waves o Added additional variables for fertilizer.
    • General variable nomenclature alignments with new standards.
    • We noticed wave 5 has some very high (>10,000 acres) reported GPS estimates. These measurements have been replaced with farmer estimated area.
  • Malawi
    • Updated the plot decision maker section in all waves to correct an error that was leading to missing decision maker gender.
    • Addressed women’s control of income issue in W3 and W4.
    • Consumption indicators have been added for cross-sectional households (the raw data issued estimates only for the panel); while we attempt to follow the established methodology, our estimates differ from those released in the raw data.
    • Updated livestock products in W1 to include missing collapse and conform variable nomenclature with standard.
    • Crop price estimates are now based on converted kilograms.
    • Included survey documentation for W2.
    • Dropped panel households from waves 3 and 4 from household food provision because of identified data entry problems.