Supplemental Explanations to Improve Comprehension of and Trust in Soil Health Cards
INDIND -17 -3289Last modified on January 27th, 2026 at 8:59 am
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Abstract
PxD has operated the Krishi Tarang service in Gujarat since 2016 to provide free agriculture information via mobile phones using a two-way Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platform with “outbound” push calls and an “inbound” hotline service.
Governments in India have invested heavily in soil testing, with the goal of distributing 140 million “Soil Health Cards” (SHCs) directly to farmers in 2017. Yet, absent additional information, farmers may have difficulty understanding and acting on the information provided in SHCs. In a field experiment with cotton farmers in Gujarat, we tested farmer understanding when farmers were provided with an SHC without a supplement against farmer understanding when farmers were provided with an audio supplement, a video supplement, or an in-person explanation by an agronomist. We find that the treatments significantly improved farmer understanding of SHCs, as well as improving farmer trust in SHCs. All three treatments dramatically improve participants’ ability to interpret fertilizer recommendations from the SHC, with between 36 and 50 percentage points (pp) higher comprehension among treated individuals. Farmers in each of the three treatment groups are also more likely to report trusting recommendations compared to those in the SHC-only group.
The primary contribution of this study is to evaluate the prospects for digital advisory to assist in the delivery of information about site-specific agricultural practices. When benchmarked against in-person extension, audio and video supplements perform comparably in terms of both enabling farmers to comprehend SHC recommendations and eliciting trust in the accuracy of SHCs. Informational supplements perform significantly better on both measures than just providing a farmer with an SHC. -
Status
Completed
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Start date
Q1 Jan 2017
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Experiment Location
India / Gujarat, India
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Partner Organization
_N/A
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Agricultural season
_N/A
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Experiment type
Impact Evaluation
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Sample frame / target population
Cotton farmers in two blocks of Gujarat where the Krishi Tarang service is operational
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Sample size
600
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Outcome type
Beliefs or perceptions, Knowledge
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Mode of data collection
In-person survey
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Research question(s)
1. Do supplemental explanations (audio, video, in-person) improve farmers’ understanding of SHCs?
2. How do the different modes of explanation compare in improving farmer understanding of SHCs?
3. Do supplemental explanations improve farmers’ trust in SHCs?
4. How do different modes of explanation compare in improving farmer trust in SHCs?
5. Is farmer trust in SHCs influenced by whether the SHC recommended higher or lower fertilizer use than is typically practiced by farmers in the area? -
Research theme
Input recommendations, Service design, Soil fertility
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Research Design
Across 12 villages in two blocks of Gujarat where the Krishi Tarang service was operational, we selected approximately 600 farmers to be assigned at random to one of four conditions in which farmers received:
- Control (C): an SHC only
- Treatment 1 (T1): an SHC and an audio recording
- Treatment 2 (T2): an SHC and a video clip
- Treatment 3 (T3): an SHC and a visit by an agronomist
We also randomly varied whether the SHC recommended higher fertilizer use than is typically practiced by farmers in the area or lower fertilizer use than is typically practiced. Each set of recommendations was plausible, given the soil composition in the area. This was done to understand whether trust in information is driven by a bias towards believing that more fertilizer is always better than less. Half of the participants in groups T1, T2, T3, and C received high-recommendation SHCs and the other half received low-recommendation SHCs. Farmers in the three treatment groups were also provided with a written supplement to convert fertilizer recommendations from the kg/hectare unit of area used by the SHC to the kg/bigha unit commonly used in this setting.
We first assessed farmer beliefs without providing any soil nutrient information, by asking the farmer to provide fertilizer recommendations to a hypothetical friend or cousin cultivating irrigated cotton. Second, we showed each farmer an SHC and asked the farmer to answer: (1) factual questions about the SHC’s recommendations about three specific types of fertilizer, and (2) opinion questions, to gauge the farmer’s perception of the trustworthiness of these recommendations. Finally, as per the farmer’s assignment to a treatment group, the SHC’s recommendations were also explained through an audio recording, video clip, or visit by an agronomist. Farmers were then asked to answer the questions again. At this time, they were also asked other questions regarding their knowledge of soil fertility, trust in recommendations under different scenarios, and willingness to participate in lotteries whereby, if chosen, they would have to pay INR 250 (or 200, or 150) to have a soil test worth INR 250 performed for their field.
For more information see Cole and Sharma (2017).
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Results
We find that the treatments significantly improved farmer understanding of SHCs as well as farmer trust in SHCs. All three treatments dramatically improved participants’ ability to interpret fertilizer recommendations from the SHC, with between 36 and 50 pp higher comprehension among treated individuals. Of the three treatments, gains were highest in the agronomist intervention, followed closely by the video and audio supplements. Farmers in all three treatment groups were more likely to report trusting the SHC recommendations than farmers in the SHC-only group. Farmers visited by an agronomist were 11.1 pp more likely, and farmers who received the audio or video treatment were 5–7 pp more likely, to report fully trusting the SHC recommendations, compared to farmers in the SHC-only group. We could not detect a difference in trust between recipients of low-recommendation and high-recommendation SHCs.