Provision of pest alerts is associated with better farm performance in Africa.

Background: Crop pests cause substantial crop yield and economic losses, food insecurity, and negative impacts on human health and environment globally. Timely provision of pest risk alerts - that is, the optimum time to intervene against key pests before invasion or establishment - to smallholder farmers on pest management could improve farm performance. However, there is little quantitative evidence testing this hypothesis.

Results: To address this gap, we use primary survey data from over 4000 smallholder farmers across four African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia. Our results suggest that providing pest alerts to smallholder farmers is associated with a higher probability of adopting integrated pest management (IPM) practices by 8-32 percentage points, as well as an increase in crop yield and income by 18-26%.

Conclusion: Improving timely access to information on pest risks and management could have substantial benefits on farm productivity and income in Africa. Our findings provide a practical pathway on how pest-induced crop losses could be minimized by addressing informational barriers. © 2025 The Author(s). Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.