Zambia reinstituted agricultural input subsidies as
one of its Poverty Reduction Strategies in 2002. Since the
introduction of Farmer Input Support Programme, the studies that
quantify its effects on income have focused either on the fertiliser
or the seed component but not on both which constitute the FISP
pack, making it difficult to determine what changes in farmers’
incomes can be attributed to FISP as a whole. Using Propensity
Score Matching with panel data from 305 randomly surveyed households in Choma and Monze districts of Zambia, the authors
of the article estimate the effect of a FISP pack on household
revenue from maize. The results show that FISP increased
household annual maize income by 30.8% and total household
income by 13.9% for 2013/14 and 2014/15 crop seasons. However,
although FISP is achieving its objective of increasing small-scale
farmers’ income, this increment is not large enough to lift
households above the poverty line.