Impact of Mobile Money Services on Agricultural Input Expenditure and Yield Among Crop Farmers in Kano State

Mobile money services have been promoted as a transformative financial inclusion tool with potential to improve smallholder farmers' ability to save, transact, and access input purchasing power at critical seasonal moments. In Kano State, in Nigeria's North West geopolitical zone, the rapid diffusion of mobile money platforms has not been matched by rigorous empirical assessment of their effects on agricultural input expenditure and crop yield outcomes. This study estimates the causal impact of mobile money adoption on agricultural input expenditure and crop yield among smallholder crop farmers in Kano State. A cross-sectional survey of 280 farm households was conducted across five local government areas using multi-stage random sampling. Endogeneity concerns associated with mobile money adoption were addressed using an instrumental variable approach, with proximity to mobile money agent networks as the identifying instrument. Two-stage least squares regression was applied. Results indicate that mobile money adoption increased input expenditure by an average of N18,400 per season, representing a 34 percent increase over non-adopter expenditure. Yield effects were positive and statistically significant at the 5 percent level, with adopting households recording yield advantages of 28 percent for maize and 22 percent for cowpea relative to non-adopters. Effects were larger for female-headed households. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the impact was concentrated among farmers more than 15 kilometres from the nearest commercial bank. The study supports mobile money as a meaningful instrument for improving agricultural input use and productivity in remote farming communities of Kano State. Keywords: mobile money, financial inclusion, input expenditure, crop yield, Kano State