Targeted Messages to Promote Flood-tolerant Seeds
INDIND -20 -1434Last modified on November 10th, 2025 at 2:07 pm
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Abstract
PxD operates Ama Krushi, a free agriculture information service delivered over mobile phones, in collaboration with the State Government of Odisha Department of Agriculture using a two-way Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platform with “outbound” push calls and an “inbound” hotline service.
There is strong prior evidence that flood-tolerant (FT) rice varieties—Swarna Sub-1 and CR 1009 Sub-1—improve productivity by reducing crop losses during floods. Despite their proven ability to increase rice yields in flood-affected years, adoption of these varieties remains low. PxD tested whether a short, targeted Ama Krushi advisory message about the benefits of FT seeds would increase their adoption. At the start of the 2020 Kharif season, roughly 10,000 Ama Krushi users in three lowland districts were randomly assigned to receive either the regular weekly seed advisory, which provided information on several locally appropriate seed varieties (control group) or the same weekly advisory with additional messages highlighting the benefits of the FT seeds for two consecutive weeks (treatment group). However, at implementation a substantial proportion of farmers with low and medium land types in the treatment group received only the additional messages focused on FT seeds.
We find from the follow-up phone survey that sending the additional messages focused on FT seeds significantly increased the reported use of FT seeds; the effect was primarily driven by farmers with low and medium land types. This test builds on PxD’s existing body of evidence showing that simple, engaging messages can be effective in promoting behavioral change among farmers. -
Status
Completed
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Start date
Q2 Jun 2020
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End date
Q4 Nov 2020
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Experiment Location
India / Odisha, India
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Partner Organization
Government of Odisha
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Agricultural season
Kharif
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Experiment type
A/B test
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Sample frame / target population
“Active” Ama Krushi farmers in three lowland districts in Odisha—Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur and Puri
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Sample size
10,000
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Outcome type
Input adoption, Knowledge
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Mode of data collection
Phone survey
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Research question(s)
Does a simple, targeted advisory message with a single recommendation increase adoption of the recommended practice?
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Research theme
Agricultural management advice, Communication technology, Message framing, Weather information
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Research Design
The random assignment of Ama Krushi users in three lowland districts was stratified by district. Following the randomization, 187 farmers were dropped from the sample because their names were missing from the profiling dataset, and 15 were dropped because they were inactive (they had neither picked up any outbound call nor used the inbound service). A balance check confirmed that the remaining sample of 9,798 farmers was balanced across the control and treatment arms.
The control group received the regular weekly seed advisory, which provided information on several locally appropriate seed varieties. The treatment group received a message highlighting the benefits of the FT seeds (Swarna Sub-1 and CR 1009 Sub-1) for two consecutive weeks. In the treatment group, all farmers with high land and some farmers with medium and low land also received the regular weekly seed advisory.
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Results
The seed advisory message that focused on FT varieties significantly increased farmers’ reported adoption of FT seeds on average across all land types. This effect was primarily driven by farmers with low and medium land types. These farmers were 2.6 percentage points more likely to plant Swarna Sub-1 and CR1009 Sub-1 after receiving the message; this was a 25% increase over the control-group mean of 10.4%. The absence of effect among highland farmers may be explained by their low flood risk or by the effectiveness of the regular seed advisory.