Newsletter Article, Issue #18: Avaaj Otalo: Evaluating the effectiveness of a mobile-based extension service
Author: Ishani Desai
It is
estimated that more than half of the Indian labor force is engaged in
agriculture. Given this, India’s
productivity in agriculture is still quite low.
For example,
India is the second largest producer of cotton
in the world, after China. Yet, Indian
cotton productivity ranks 78th in the world, with yields only one-third as large as those in China. Many
factors, such as access to credit and insurance may contribute to differences
in productivity; but a key possibility is that farmers lack information about ways
to increase their productivity.
Agricultural research institutions in India generate a large amount of practical scientific knowledge; however, little of this
information actually reaches farmers because of inefficient or nonexistent agricultural extension systems. The Government of India spent nearly $60
million USD on public agricultural extension programs from 2009 to 2010. Despite this, a nationally representative
survey shows that just 5.7 percent of farmers report receiving information
about agricultural technologies from public extension agents in India.
With the
growing access and availability of mobile technology, the ability to deliver timely and
relevant information to farmers through mobile phones is easier than ever
before. It is estimated that 36
percent of those working in agriculture have a wireless subscription and could
access agricultural information via mobile phone. Mobile technology, then, has the potential to
revolutionize the way farmer’s access information and do business.
The Study
The CMF
study “Avaaj Otalo: Investigating the Impact of a Mobile-based Extension
Service” study seeks to evaluate a mobile-based intervention that provides farmers access to weekly
agricultural advice messages as well as to a service where a farmer can ask
questions and receive responses
from an agricultural expert and access a database that stores responses for a
period of two years. Working with the
Development Support Centre (DSC) and Awaaz.De, 800 farmer households were randomly assigned toll-free access to AO,
of which 400 also received traditional physical extension outreach. The control group for the study is comprised
of another 400 households. The 1,200 farmers who are participating
in this study are located in the Surendranagar district in Gujarat, own a
mobile phone, and grow cotton. In
addition, on average, they earn $288 USD a month and have 4 years of education.
With more than half of the treatment farmers calling into Avaaj Otalo in the first seven
months, it is evident that there is substantial demand for such agricultural
advice services. Results from our phone
surveys indicate that farmers offered the service turn less often to other farmers and input dealers for agricultural advice. We also observe an increase in the adoption of
more effective pesticides
and reduced expenditures on less effective and
hazardous pesticides. These early
observed changes in behavior and investment decisions seem quite promising.
The Future of AO: Policy Implications
The Avaaj Otalo study demonstrates that
informational inefficiencies are real and that there is a considerable demand
for high-quality agricultural information. Mobile-based technology platforms present an
opportunity to improve the frequency and relevance (seasonal and geographic) of
agricultural extension services which in-turn has the potential to dramatically
increase on-farm efficiency and improve rural livelihoods. The service is also inexpensive, with a cost
estimate of approximately $3.00 (Rs.150) per year per farmer to cover the cost
of airtime and labor required to administer the service. Administered independently or coupled with
traditional extension services, the innovation has the potential to reach a
much larger population of farmers at a fraction of the cost required for
traditional extension services. The
current evaluation aims to understand the effectiveness of such non-traditional
extension services as well as how information is best relayed and then
subsequently transmitted or diffused within farmer communities. Also, given that the service is currently
free, important next steps will be to gauge the demand price or a farmers
‘willingness-to-pay’ for such a product and the impact of the service on yields.
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