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Framing of a Filter to Engage with the Seed Selector Tool
KEN -21 -1636Last modified on December 19th, 2025 at 10:39 am
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Abstract
PxD operates the MoA-INFO platform in collaboration with Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture to provide free agricultural recommendations to farmers via SMS messages. The platform includes a Seed Selector Tool (SST) that allows farmers to learn about maize seed varieties that are best suited to their agro-ecological zones, by browsing a list of locally suitable, certified varieties. We implemented a new feature allowing SST users to directly browse the three top-yielding varieties in their agro-ecological zone. We conducted this experiment with over 160,000 users in the 2021 long rainy season (LR 2021) to test two different framings to label this new filter in the SST: “top-yielding seed varieties” and “expert recommended”. The objective of this experiment was to assess which framing leads to greater engagement with the SST, but we found no clear difference between the two framing options. The expert-recommended label slightly increased the likelihood of users completing the first step, but no significant differences were observed in the subsequent steps to complete their use of the tool.
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Status
Completed
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Start date
Q1 Mar 2021
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End date
Q3 Jul 2021
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Experiment Location
Kenya
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Partner Organization
Kenya Ministry of Agriculture, J-PAL
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Agricultural season
Long Rains
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Experiment type
A/B test
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Sample frame / target population
All MoA-INFO users who had been active in the previous 12 months
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Sample size
167,229
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Outcome type
Platform engagement
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Mode of data collection
PxD administrative data
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Research question(s)
Which label, “expert recommended” or “top-yielding seed varieties”, for the new SST top-three filter leads to higher engagement with the SST?
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Research theme
Communication technology, Message framing
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Research Design
The sample for this experiment comprised all MoA-INFO users who had been active in the previous 12 months before the LR 2021 when the experiment was implemented. All 160,000 farmers in the sample received an SMS invitation to browse the new filter of the SST. The SMS invitation included the label of the new filter. The treatment groups received different labels:
1. T1: “top-yielding seed varieties”.
2. T2: “expert recommended”. -
Results
No treatment impact is found on the propensity of farmers to respond to the SMS invitation to engage with the SST.
T1 farmers who responded to the SMS invitation were 2.9 percentage points less likely to complete the first step of the SST, which is when farmers indicate the seed maturity duration that they are interested in. No treatment impact is observed at the second step, when farmers choose between the new filter or the full list of seed varieties, or at the third step when farmers select a specific seed variety from the list they have access to.
Overall, neither framing proved more effective than the other for driving meaningful engagement with the tool. The expert-recommended label slightly increased the chance that farmers completed the first step of the SST, yet no difference between the two labels is observed for the following steps. Since a farmer should complete the second step to get some information—the list of suitable seed varieties—completing the first step only does not lead to any gain in knowledge from engaging with the tool.