Harnessing ICT to Increase Agricultural Production:

Sending SMS messages with agricultural advice to smallholder farmers increased yields relative to a control group with no messages

• From: Department for International Development
• Published: 1 March 2014

• Country: Kenya
• Document Type: Working Paper
• Theme: Agriculture
• Authors: Casaburi, L., Kremer, M, Mullainathan, S, Ramrattan, R

Abstract

Sending SMS messages with agricultural advice to smallholder farmers increased yields by 11.5% relative to a control group with no messages.These effects are concentrated among farmers who had no agronomy training and had little interaction with sugar cane company staff at baseline. Enabling farmers to report input provision delays to the company reduces the proportion of delays in fertilizer delivery by 21.6%. There is evidence that reporting a complaint has positive geographic spillovers, since it induces the company to deliver inputs to several neighboring plots.

This research was funded under the Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) Programme

Citation

Casaburi, L., Kremer, M., Mullainathan, S., & Ramrattan, R. (2014). Harnessing ict to increase agricultural production: Evidence from Kenya. Unpublished working paper. 33p

Links

Harnessing ICT to Increase Agricultural Production:Evidence From Kenya

Published 1 March 2014