The Impact of Digital Extension Messages on the Prevention and Management of Fall Armyworm
ZAM -17 -1371-
Abstract
Fall armyworm (FAW) is a pest that spread from the Americas to sub-Saharan Africa in 2016. It is a fast-reproducing species that causes substantial crop damage. PAD and the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI) implemented an SMS campaign in four provinces (Southern, Luapula, Central, and Eastern) of Zambia using a digital platform managed by the Zambian Ministry of Agriculture to provide smallholder farmers with timely advice on how to prevent and manage FAW infestations throughout the 2019–2020 season.
We evaluated the impact of delivering digital extension messages on FAW prevention and management via the Zambia Integrated Agricultural Management Information System (ZIAMIS) platform to farmers registered for Zambia’s Farmer Input Subsidy Program (FISP). Intervention messages covered FAW monitoring, cultural pest control practices, preventive methods, and correct use of pesticides and fertilizers. We used follow-up questions to evaluate farmers’ actions based on whether they spotted FAW and used pesticides.
Results show that farmers in the treatment group had significantly higher scores on both FAW knowledge and recommended practice adoption indices. The estimated treatment effects do not vary significantly across gender or SMS use frequency. -
Status
Completed
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Start date
Q4 Nov 2017
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Experiment Location
Zambia
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Partner Organization
CABI , Smart Zambia Institute , Zambia Ministry of Agriculture
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Agricultural season
Rainy Season
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Experiment type
Impact Evaluation
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Sample frame / target population
8028 hotline users
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Sample size
160,000
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Outcome type
Agricultural production / yield, Crop / animal health or loss, Knowledge
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Mode of data collection
Phone survey
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Research question(s)/hypotheses
1. Does SMS advice on FAW improve farmers’ knowledge and nudge them to adopt the recommended practices?
2. Are there differential effects by gender of the message recipient or frequency of SMS use? -
Research theme
Communication technology, Pest management
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Research design notes
Camps were randomly assigned to either treatment (N = 105) or control (N = 68) groups from a list of high-FAW-risk areas, stratified by province and camp size. We sent messages to all the farmers in the treatment camps who were registered as FISP beneficiaries for the 2019–2020 agricultural season.
From December 2019 to February 2020, we sent a total of 39 messages to 86,244 farmers in treatment camps across four provinces (Central, Eastern, Southern, and Luapula). Messages covered FAW monitoring, cultural pest control practices, preventative methods, and correct use of pesticides and fertilizers, and were delivered in Bemba, Nyanja, or Tonga languages, based on camp-level language assignments that the Ministry of Agriculture provided.
The survey sample comprised the 3,028 FISP-registered farmers on the ZIAMIS platform who were reached via phone and consented to participate in the survey. We asked farmers a maximum of four questions about their actions, depending on whether farmers spotted FAW and used pesticides. -
Results
The intervention led to significant improvements in farmers’ knowledge of FAW and their self-reported adoption of recommended management practices. We constructed simple knowledge and action indices to capture the proportion of relevant questions each respondent answered correctly.
The treatment group had higher scores on both the knowledge quiz and the action index (measured as the percentage of correct answers for the five quiz questions). Treatment farmers scored on average 1.75 percentage points (pp) higher on the knowledge quiz (68.25% compared to 66.50% in the control group). Similarly, treatment farmers scored 3.67 pp higher on the recommended actions index (82.27% compared to 78.60% in the control group).
We performed heterogeneity analysis to see if the effect of treatment varies by the gender of the farmer or by the frequency of SMS use. We found no significant differences, suggesting that the treatment effect is the same for men and women alike, and high-frequency and low-frequency users of SMS.