Improving smallholder agriculture via video-based group extension

Tushi Baul, Dean Karlan, Kentaro Toyama and Kathryn Vasilaky

Journal of Development Economics, 2024, vol. 169, issue C

Abstract: Providing agricultural advice at scale poses operational challenges. Technology may help if repeating content reinforces learning for recipients and thus improves adoption, but risks reducing efficacy given limited customization and human interaction. We tested videos shared with female farmers in India as a supplement to standard human-provided extension services promoting a climate-smart practice, System Rice Intensification. The average treatment effects are large but imprecise because of non-normally distributed outcomes, specifically fat right tails. Weighted quantile regressions show that the imprecision in estimating an average treatment effect comes from farmers with output or yields in the upper quantiles. Both quantile regressions of the 25% and 50% quantiles and a Bayesian hierarchical model (robust to several priors) reveal positive treatment effects, and two subtreatments, one that reinforces information on labor costs from adoption and a second that presents role models to motivate adoption, lead to even higher estimated treatment effects on output.

Keywords: Water; Field experiment; Agriculture; System rice intensification; Video-based training; Group extension; information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 D83 O12 O13 O33 Q01 Q12 Q25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:169:y:2024:i:c:s0304387824000166

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2024.103267

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