Adoption of productivity-and income-enhancing agricultural inputs is low, particularly in Africa, despite the importance of farm incomes in rural welfare (Aker, 2011; Duflo et al., 2011; Foster and Rosenzweig, 2010). In Uganda, use of high-quality agricultural inputs such as hybrid maize seed, glyphosate herbicide, and inorganic fertilizer is extremely low (Ashour et al., 2015). This leads to low agricultural productivity and limits incomes. Low levels of technology adoption are compounded (and may partially be explained by) a lack of farmer trust in the current inputs supply system, which has been plagued by counterfeiting (Fairbairn et al., 2018; Bold et al., 2018).

Counterfeit products range from benign fake or adulterated materials, to banned substances that are harmful to both crops and human health. Counterfeiters have become increasingly innovative in their techniques, making it difficult to identify their products without laboratory tests, while farmers and agro-dealers have little means of verifying whether a product is genuine, unexpired, priced fairly, or accurately labeled by brand, type, or concentration.