| Experiment (select + to view abstract) | Abstract | Start date | Location | Research tags | Status | Experiment_type | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monsoon Forecast Dissemination 2024 | Climate change is exacerbating weather uncertainty, and there is strong evidence that farmers adjust their behavior and investment decisions in response to accurate weather forecasts. In 2024, PxD, in collaboration with DIL and the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (MoA&FW), launched a large-scale pilot to deliver critical weather information to farmers across five Indian states via SMS. The pilot provided two key types of forecasts: Monsoon Onset (MO), which offered forecasted dates for the start of the monsoon season, and Total Rainfall (TR), which projected cumulative rainfall expected over the June to September monsoon period, with data sourced from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). The primary objective of the pilot was to scale up dissemination while maximizing learning to inform future expansion efforts. The pilot aimed to monitor dissemination effectiveness and evaluate the impact of providing accurate forecasts on farmer productivity and welfare. Specifically, the learning agenda focused on assessing the effectiveness of dissemination; understanding farmers’ reactions to the forecast, including comprehension, trust, and belief updates; exploring potential spillovers from peer-to-peer learning; gauging demand for forecasts; analyzing how forecasts influence farmer behavior and agricultural activity; and examining the broader effects on farmer welfare, profits, consumption, and household finance. | India | Development Innovation Lab - University of Chicago, India Ministry of Agriculture | Agricultural management advice, Communication technology, Social learning, Weather Information | Ongoing | Kharif | Impact Evaluation | |||
| iCare Weather Project Karnataka | PxD partnered with the Coffee Board of India to deliver Coffee Krishi Taranga (CKT), a voice-based agricultural advisory service for coffee farmers in Karnataka. In addition, PxD collaborated with the Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN) to provide highly localized, sub-block-level 5-day cumulative rainfall forecasts suited to coffee farmers' contexts. Weather uncertainty amplifies agricultural production risk. Weather forecasts are a technology that can help farmers better manage this risk — particularly with improving forecast skill and increasing weather variability due to climate change. Accurate, granular weather forecasts at seasonal, medium-range, and short-range timescales can help farmers form better expectations about upcoming weather. These expectations could translate into optimal action when farmers are equipped to act on them. In this study, we focus on one strategy to help farmers translate beliefs into action — providing advisory on recommended actions in addition to a weather forecast through a voice-call-based service. The standard advisory service provides instructions on best practices for different agricultural activities. In separate calls, the weather forecast service provides weather forecasts alone or forecasts combined with recommended actions based on forecasted weather. The objective of this experiment is to assess whether providing agronomic advice together with weather forecasts improves farmers' engagement with the information and supports informed decision-making. | India, Karnataka, India | CFAN, Coffee Board of India, iCare | Communication technology, Message timing and frequency, Weather Information | Completed | Kharif, Rabi | A/B test | |||
| Andhra Pradesh Coffee A/B Test | PxD has operated the Krishi Tarang service in Gujarat since 2016 to provide free agriculture information via mobile phones using a two-way IVR platform with "outbound" push calls and an "inbound" hotline service. PxD developed advisory content for users of our coffee advisory service, Coffee Krishi Taranga (CKT), a voice-based advisory platform developed in collaboration with the Coffee Board of India. Identifying that increasing weather variability due to climate change has increased the importance of timely agronomic information to aid farmers in decision-making. In this study, we focus on coffee farmers in Andhra Pradesh. In this study, we want to see the impact of the CKT service on priority practice adoption. The farmers are stratified by block into a control arm, where they will receive access to the hotline, and a treatment arm, where they will receive access to the outbound voice-call-based advisory service in addition to the hotline and SMS dissemination. Results are awaited. | India | Coffee Board of India, Walmart | Agricultural management advice, Communication technology | Ongoing | Kharif, Rabi | A/B test | |||
| Bayer - GeoPotato Final Report | The main objectives of the experiment are the following: -Gain insight into the effect of promoting Bayer fungicides on farmers’ brand recognition and knowledge. -Assess the effect of the Bayer-branded alerts on purchases and usage of Bayer-branded fungicides, as well as fungicides in general. -Understand how branded messages affect farmers’ perception and trust in the service, and how this translates into the adoption of GeoPotato recommendations and farmer outcomes. | 2018 | Bangladesh | mPower | Extension Agents, Input markets, Social learning | Completed & results available | _N/A | Impact Evaluation | ||
| Experiment 112: Livestock Menu Arrangement | The livestock content was prepared and launched through 8028 in May 2020. The livestock content and the menu is structured as dairy (first menu), fattening (second menu), small-scale poultry (third menu), improved household poultry (fourth menu) and apiculture. Based on the analysis that PAD has done throughout, callers are likely choosing based on the arrangement of the main menu items. Dairy gets the most hits followed by fattening, then small-scale poultry, improved household poultry and apiculture. Similarly, the distribution of hits is more proportionately distributed when the menu choices are lesser. For instance, the fattening menu has two sub menus: cattle fattening and sheep and goat fattening. Despite the fact that sheep and goat fattening appears the second, it gets more hits compared to cattle fattening. | Ethiopia | Ethiopian ATA | Communication technology | Completed | _N/A | A/B test | |||
| MoA-INFO LR2021 Registration A/B Test | PxD operates the MoA-INFO platform in collaboration with Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture to provide free agricultural recommendations to farmers via SMS. The objective of this A/B test is to evaluate the effectiveness of a redesigned registration process into the MoA-Info SMS service. | 2021 | Kenya | _N/A | Completed | Long Rains | A/B test | |||
| Name | PxD has operated the Krishi Tarang service in Gujarat since 2016 to provide free agriculture information via mobile phones using a two-way IVR platform with "outbound" push calls and an "inbound" hotline service. The A/B test aims to assess the effect of including the recipient’s name in advisory push calls on the user engagement. | Gujarat, India, India | J-PAL | Communication technology, Message framing, Message Narration | Completed | Kharif | A/B test | |||
| Frequency A/B test | The objective of the A/B test was to understand the effect of sending shorter push calls with increased frequency on average listening rate of outbound calls. | 2017 | Gujarat, India | J-PAL | Message timing and frequency | Completed | Kharif | A/B test | 0 | 0 |
| Training method A/B test | Analysing different methods of training - one-on-one training (remote v/s field) v/s group and its effect on farmer engagement | 2016 | Gujarat, India | J-PAL | Completed | Rabi | A/B test | 0 | ||
| Call length A/B test | PAD operates Krishi Tarang, a two-way IVR service through which farmers receive weekly advisory messages and have access to an inbound hotline service to access previous content and ask questions. Farmers who get messages usually do not know either the total length of the message, or the lengths of various topics being discussed. Current push calls range from 60-140 seconds and cover around 1-4 topics. The issue with this is that farmers do not know the length of the call, in its entirety, or by topic and thus hang up at different points, which could be an arbitrary decision. This experiment will be able to tease out whether the decision to listen or not listen is a function of whether or not they are interested in the advice. | 2018 | Gujarat, India | _N/A, J-PAL | Message framing | Completed | Kharif | A/B test | ||
| Cropping Series Invite Messages | PxD operates the MoA-INFO platform in collaboration with Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture to provide free agricultural recommendations to farmers via SMS. This experiment aimed to improve cropping series engagement by refining MOA-INFO's cropping series invitation messages. | 2019 | Kenya | Kenya Ministry of Agriculture | Completed | Short Rains | A/B test | 0 | ||
| Crop diversification | PAD is working with the West Bengal Accelerated Development of Minor Irrigation Project (WBADMI) to implement a mobile phone-based extension system, Krishi Katha, for smallholder farmers belonging to the Water User Associations (WUAs) formed under the ADMI project across West Bengal. The objective of this A/B test is to nudge WUA farmers in West Bengal through IVR and SMS messages to grow more profitable crops like Brinjal, Tomato, Okra, Gourds, Cucumber and Black Gram on a portion of their land during Kharif 2020. | 2020 | India, West Bengal, India | ADMI | Agricultural management advice, Message framing | Discontinued | Kharif | A/B test | 0 | 0 |