Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project Highlights

The program's primary objective was to equip participants with the necessary skills and knowledge to conduct high-quality research in agricultural policy. The program's focus was on the development of research skills, particularly in the areas of research design, data analysis, and policy analysis. The program's curriculum included courses such as AFRE 874 (Empirical Methods in Field Research in Developing Countries) and CSUS 836 (Modeling Natural Resource Systems). These courses provided participants with a comprehensive understanding of research design, data analysis, and policy analysis. The courses also introduced participants to cutting-edge analytical techniques, including treatment effect estimation and heterogeneity analysis. One of the program's participants, Stella Chiemela, gained valuable insights from her participation in the program. She noted that the courses she took at Michigan State University (MSU) helped her to improve her understanding of research design, tradeoffs in research designs, and biases induced by different types of designs. She also gained hands-on knowledge and practical experience in demonstrations of farm and post-harvest value addition practices during study visits to MSU centers and farms. The program's training sessions also focused on statistical and data analysis using the 'R' programming language. Dr. Michael Olabisi's training session on 'R' programming was particularly beneficial to Stella, who perceived it as the best for statistical and data analysis compared to other software she had used. She intends to use the 'R' programming language in her PhD research and other research works. The Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Feed the Future initiative. The project's contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. The project was a collaborative effort between Michigan State University and the International Food Policy Research Institute.