Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy

Highlights 53, Chukwudi Charles Olumba, September 2019.

The Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project conducted a follow-up training on data management and analysis using computer statistical software (STATA) on July 3, 2019 at the Department of Agricultural Economics, Management and Extension, Ebonyi State University (EBSU), Abakaliki. 18 graduate students and staff of the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources Management attended the training (8 staff and 10 graduate students, comprising 4 males and 14 females). All of the trainees had earlier participated in the STATA training organized by the project.

Professor S. U. Nwibo, Head of the host department, delivered opening remarks. He expressed his gratitude to the NAPP ideology of “train one to train others” and also for the training geared at improving the academics and researchers’ knowledge of the STATA application to effectively analyze data and make evidence-based policy formulation.

The STATA training, was facilitated by Chukwudi Charles Olumba, a NAPP Scholar at Michigan State University (MSU). He took participants on a journey by introducing the identification strategies/core assumptions guiding the various methods of data analysis for experimental or observational data, drawn from lectures and lecture notes by Professor Nakasone, MSU.

The training covered a wide range of topics:

• Introduction to STATA
• Checking the data (starting a do-file)
• Modifying the data (rename, label variable, dealing with missing values and inputting missing values)
• Exploring the dataset
• Transforming the data (generate, replace, egen, recode, drop, keep)
• Manipulating data (merging/appending, reshaping)
• Analysis (simple linear regression, correlation, Ttest, chi square test, ANOVA and graphics)

One of the participants, a lecturer at the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources Management, had this to say at the end of the training, “When we were first trained on data analysis using STATA application, I never knew core assumptions were guiding the various methods of data analysis for experimental or observational data. Most times I run into confusion on the right analytical tool to use for my analysis. However, the facilitator first started by addressing the core assumptions guiding the various methods of data analysis before going into data management and analysis. I look forward to continuous mentoring by the facilitator with the support of the NAPP, while I will try perfecting the use of the STATA application so I can further analyze and interpret my results appropriately to proffer policy formulation.”