Accelerating technical change through ICT: Evidence from a video-mediated extension experiment in Ethiopia.

Despite enthusiasm around applications of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to smallholder agriculture in many lower-income countries, there are still many questions on the effectiveness of ICT-based approaches. This study assesses the impacts of video-mediated agricultural extension service provision on farmers' adoption of improved agricultural technologies and practices in Ethiopia using data from a two-year randomized experiment. Our results show that the video-mediated extension approach significantly increases uptake of recommended technologies and practices by improving extension access and farmer knowledge. Specifically, we find that video-mediated extension reaches a wider audience than the government's conventional extension approach and leads to higher levels of farmer understanding and uptake of the subject technologies in those locations randomly assigned to the program. While our results also point to greater extension access and greater knowledge among female spouses in locations where both male and female spouses were targeted by the program, we do not find clear evidence that a more inclusive approach translates into higher uptake of the subject technologies. Finally, we find that the video-mediated approach becomes less costly as the scale of operation increases.

Ex ante and ex post effects of hybrid index insurance in Bangladesh.

This study assesses both the demand for and effectiveness of an index insurance product designed to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh manage crop production risk during the monsoon season. Villages were randomized into either an insurance treatment or a comparison group, and discounts and rebates were randomly allocated across treatment villages to encourage insurance take-up and to allow for the estimation of the price-elasticity of insurance demand. Among those offered insurance, we find demand to be fairly price elastic, with discounts significantly more successful in stimulating demand than rebates. Purchasing insurance yields both ex ante risk management effects as well as ex post income effects on agricultural production practices. The risk management effects lead to an expansion of cultivated area with concomitant increases in agricultural input expenditures during the monsoon season. The income effects lead to more intensive rice production during the subsequent dry season, with more intensive use of both irrigation and fertilizers, resulting in higher yields and higher total rice production.

New modalities for managing drought risk in rainfed agriculture: Evidence from a discrete choice experiment in Odisha, India.

Droughts have historically had large impacts on agricultural production in rainfed agricultural systems. Scientists and policymakers have proposed various strategies for managing risks, with limited success. In this study we consider two such strategies, specifically drought tolerant rice and weather index insurance. While neither drought tolerant cultivars nor weather index insurance products are perfect solutions for adequately managing drought risk in and of themselves, there is scope to exploit the benefits of each and bundle them into a complementary risk management product, specifically through proper index calibration and an optimized insurance design. In this study, we explore preferences for such a complementary risk management product using discrete choice experiments in Odisha, India. We are able to estimate the added value that farmers perceive in the bundled product above and beyond the value associated with each of the independent products. We also show that valuations are very sensitive to the basis risk implied by the insurance product, with farmers less enthusiastic about risk management products that leave significant risks uninsured.

Drought-tolerant rice, weather index insurance, and comprehensive risk management for smallholders: evidence from a multi-year field experiment in India.

In rainfed production systems throughout India, agricultural activities are dependent upon the summer monsoon, and any aberration in monsoon rainfall patterns can have severe consequences for rice production. There is considerable policy interest in designing programs to lower small-scale farmers' exposure to these types of risk given the regularity with which adverse monsoon events occur. This paper introduces a field experiment conducted with two risk management options in the state of Odisha: a drought-tolerant rice cultivar; and a weather index insurance product designed to complement the performance of the cultivar. Uptake rates for the cultivar itself and for the joint product are compared across two years alongside an analysis of factors that predict uptake. Results indicate high levels of demand for both the products, albeit with a significant degree of price sensitivity. But this sensitivity is agnostic to the nature of price reductions, suggesting that public investments that lower the costs of risk management may be sufficient to encourage broad uptake, without necessarily relying upon distortionary subsidies as is so often done. Sustained demand between years one and two is primarily explained where individuals were indemnified in year one and had a large number of peers also purchasing the product.