Creating Opportunities for Rural Producers: Impact Evaluation of a Pilot Program in Colombia

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents the impact evaluation of a pilot program that treated 57 small organizations of agricultural producers with high risk of getting involved in illegal drug production in Colombia. The program supported producers mainly by facilitating the commercialization of their new licit alternative sources of income. We combine propensity score matching, regression discontinuity, and Bayesian decision theory, with unique and rich panel data to assess the economic impact of the program. Our results suggest that the program was successful on increasing total sales and improving the product’s quality for the treated producers. The intervention was more successful when combined with other programs that gave producers incentives to abandon illegal drug production definitely.