PRISE Pesticide Application Campaign LR 2021
KEN -21 -1696Last modified on December 19th, 2025 at 10:41 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 to farmers to help them make better decisions about pesticide application when confronted with pests in their fields.
Linking this information to their planting date gives farmers early warning to act against the pests. This trial is a replication of a trial run in Kenya’s 2020 short rainy season (SR 2020) “PRISE Pesticide Application Campaign SR 2020”. The intervention in this experiment targeted maize, bean, and tomato farmers. The timing of fortnightly SMS messages was linked to pest-risk forecasts and planting dates during the long rainy season 2021 (LR 2021). The objective was to disseminate timely advice on pesticide application and evaluate the effect of the advice on farmers’ engagement with the MoA-INFO platform and on their pest management decisions.
Consistent with the results from the SR 2020 trial, we find that the PRISE message campaign increased MoA-INFO menu browsing rates across all crops, thus confirming that push messages drive platform engagement. However, we observe slightly higher opt-out rates in treatment groups, which suggests that some users may experience SMS fatigue. Farmers generally perceived the PRISE recommendations as accurate, but cited their limited resources as a barrier to acting on the advice. -
Status
Completed
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Start date
Q1 Mar 2021
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End date
Q4 Dec 2021
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Experiment Location
Kenya
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Partner Organization
CABI, Kenya Ministry of Agriculture
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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
MoA-INFO users (farmer) who are medium and late planters and opted into (either) maize, bean or tomato in MoA-INFO at the beginning of the LR2021 season
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Sample size
77,786
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Outcome type
Service engagement, Crop / animal health or loss, Agricultural profits / revenues, Platform engagement, Agricultural production / yield, Farming practices, Input adoption
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Mode of data collection
PxD administrative data, Phone survey
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Research question(s)
1. Do PRISE pest advisory messages increase farmers’ engagement with the MoA-INFO platform?
2. How do PRISE pest messages affect pest management decisions? -
Research theme
Pest management
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Research Design
This trial was conducted in 173 constituencies that had a minimum number of 30 medium or late planters who had opted-in to receive the cropping series (CS) SMS advisory for maize, beans, or tomatoes from the MoA-INFO platform in the LR 2021. Users could opt-in to the CS for a maximum of two crops at a time. Farmers were randomly assigned to the treatment or control groups, stratified at the constituency level. Farmers assigned to the treatment group for one crop were also assigned to the treatment group for any other crops they had opted-in to at the time of randomization. The crop-wise randomization order was maize first, followed by beans, then tomatoes.
The number of users who opted-in to maize at the beginning of the LR 2021 in the relevant constituencies was the highest (57,691 users), followed by bean (37,325), then tomato (17,707). The trial was designed to result in 10,000 farmers in the treatment group for each crop. Therefore the proportion of treated versus control farmers was 17.3% for maize, 26.8% for bean, and 56.7% for tomato. The proportion of medium and late planters in the treatment groups was determined based on the number of medium- and late-planting MoA-INFO farmers from qualifying constituencies. The three treatment groups were composed of 63% medium planters and 37% late planters.
Maize, bean, and tomato treatment farmers received fortnightly push messages throughout the LR 2021, with recommendations for the best time to spray with pesticides. Treatment farmers were also invited to browse certain sections of the MoA-INFO content—the Fall armyworm (FAW), bean fly, and tomato leafminer (Tuta absoluta) menus, and the FAW monitoring tool—by sending specific keywords (i.e., FAW, BEAN, TOMATO, CHECK). Control group farmers received standard CS messages for the crops they had opted-in to.
During the months of May and June, PxD conducted two rounds of monitoring surveys to gather feedback on the PRISE model.
The outcomes for engagement with the MoA-INFO platform were: (1) opting-out of the CS, and (2) browsing the relevant MoA-INFO platform menus as encouraged by the treatment messages. We measured the opt-out outcome as a dummy variable if a user opted-out at any point in the LR 2021 season. We measured menu browsing as a dummy variable if a user browsed the menu at least one time during the same period, and we counted the total number of times the user browsed during that period. Users could still browse menus by sending the keyword, even if they opted-out of receiving CS push messages.
For further information on the previous trial, see PRISE Pesticide Application Campaign SR 2020
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Results
The Kenya PRISE information campaign had a positive effect on platform engagement. Maize, bean, and tomato treatment farmers browsed the MoA-INFO menu more than control farmers did. Consistent with findings in previous MoA-INFO trials, sending push messages to farmers is an effective way to increase both engagement with the platform and menu browsing. However, we find significantly higher opt-out rates for farmers who received PRISE messages, which we speculate may be due to SMS fatigue.
According to monitoring surveys during the season, certain farmers were not able to act upon the recommendations. Farmers identified the lack of resources to buy required inputs (i.e., cost considerations) as the primary reason. In their pest management decisions, farmers were mainly informed by the MoA-INFO service and by agro-dealers, and to a lesser extent by peer farmers. A majority of farmers reported wanting to receive more information about the crops they grow (this is particularly true for tomato growers).