PRISE FAW Information Campaign SR 2019
KEN -19 -1479Last modified on December 19th, 2025 at 10:19 am
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Abstract
The Pest Risk Information Service (PRISE) is an early warning model, run by the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI), that predicts the optimal timing of pesticide application. PxD operates the MoA-INFO platform in collaboration with Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture to provide free agricultural recommendations to farmers via SMS messages. CABI partnered with PxD to send SMS messages with information about Fall Armyworm (FAW) to maize farmers about the time when pesticides were likely to be most effective for their area, based on the PRISE model.
PxD randomly selected a sample of farmers from the MoA-INFO platform to receive a series of SMS messages with general advice on maize management practices and with FAW pest-management advice that corresponded to the forecasted planting dates for the farmer’s constituency. Control farmers had access to demand-driven FAW management advice, but did not receive push SMS messages.
PxD conducted a follow-up phone survey to measure the effects on knowledge, practices, and the extent of FAW damage. The intervention messages significantly increased the number of times farmers accessed FAW content. It marginally improved farmers’ knowledge (statistically insignificant) and significantly increased farmers’ self-reported adoption of the natural solutions for managing FAW that were recommended by the SMS intervention. -
Status
Completed
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Start date
Q4 Oct 2019
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End date
Q4 Dec 2019
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Experiment Location
Kenya
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Partner Organization
CABI, Kenya Ministry of Agriculture
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Agricultural season
Short Rains
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Experiment type
A/B test
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Sample frame / target population
Maize farmers
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Sample size
8,600
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Outcome type
Knowledge, Farming practices
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Mode of data collection
Phone survey
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Research question(s)
Do SMS messages based on the PRISE model have an effect on:
1. maize farmers’ engagement on the SMS platform,
2. farmers’ knowledge about FAW,
3. farmers’ ability to spot FAW, and
4. farmers’ practices in managing FAW? -
Research theme
Communication technology, Pest management
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Research Design
We selected 48 constituencies out of 290 in Kenya and sent PRISE messages to inform maize farmers about the optimal pesticide spraying time for their area, based on the PRISE model. We randomly assigned farmers to two groups:
Control (n = 2,576): The farmers received PRISE messages about the optimal pesticide spraying time for maize in their area, based on the PRISE model. They did not receive any push messages about the FAW information available on the MoA-INFO platform, but they had access to all FAW content on the platform through the menu or by sending keywords.
Treatment (n = 6,024): The farmers received several series of push messages throughout the season; the messages were about FAW and encouraged the farmers to access sections of MoA-INFO content, specifically the FAW menu and the monitoring tool.
The monitoring tool is a decision-support tool that sends farmers to their farm to measure their FAW infestation rate. The tool provides farmers with recommendations (whether to spray pesticides) based on their recorded infestation rate and the size of their maize. The FAW menu is a directory of information about FAW detection, management, origins, pesticides, and misconceptions. Users can select the FAW topics that they are interested in learning about.
The push messages to treatment farmers corresponded to the five stages of the PRISE model and were adjusted by constituency, depending on the rate of FAW infestation throughout the season:
- Stage 1: An introductory message asking if farmers had seen FAW, plus messages informing farmers that FAW was in their area, then messages about managing FAW with cultural control methods (natural solutions like applying ash or pepper).
- Stage 2: An introductory message asking if farmers had seen FAW, then two messages informing farmers about the importance of good pesticide timing and the expected “Best Pesticide Date”. If a user replied to this “Best Pesticide Date” within 2 hours, they were sent to the FAW Menu; otherwise, no additional messages were sent.
- Stage 3: An introductory message asking if farmers had seen FAW. If a user replied within 7 hours, they were referred to the FAW menu; otherwise, no additional messages were sent.
- Stage 4: Two messages, one directing farmers to use the monitoring tool and the other providing information about the best time to apply pesticides.
- Stage 5: One message to remind users how to access the monitoring tool.
We conducted a follow-up phone survey to measure the effects on knowledge, practices, and the extent of FAW damage.
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Results
Platform usage: The SMS campaign significantly increased farmers’ access to the FAW menu and the monitoring tool by 27.4 percentage points (pp; 2 times over the control group mean of 13.6%) and 16.1 pp (2.3 times over the control group mean of 7.0%), respectively. While push messages were sent out to only the treatment farmers during the intervention period, farmers in both groups could access the information about FAW and the monitoring tool on demand. We observe that farmers in the treatment group were more likely to complete the monitoring tool by 3.2 pp (1.1 times over the control group mean of 3.0%). This difference was not statistically significant when we restricted our analysis to the phone survey sample.
Knowledge: We examined a set of measures using knowledge quiz questions. We observed that treatment group farmers answered 0.068 more questions correctly, compared to control group farmers (representing a 2.5% increase in knowledge score), although this difference is small in magnitude and is statistically indistinguishable.
Observation of FAW: Farmers’ self-reported outcomes showed no statistical difference between the treatment and control groups.
Practices in managing FAW: Treatment messages significantly increased farmers’ adoption of at least one natural solution for managing FAW, and the number of natural solutions adopted, by 5.5 pp (22% over the control group mean of 24.9%) and 9 pp (23% over the control group mean of 38.0%), respectively. Treatment messages also significantly increased the farmers’ likelihood not to adopt inappropriate practices by 2.5 pp (2.6% over the control group mean of 96.1%).
Severity of FAW infestation: We examined farmers’ self-reported outcomes and observed that the severe infestation rates were not statistically different across treatment and control groups.