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Field
Last Published
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Before
January 03, 2023 04:19 PM
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After
August 06, 2023 09:34 PM
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Field
Intervention (Public)
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Before
The study has two interventions. In both interventions farmers will be able to rent drum seeders on a daily basis. In one arm the rental will be managed by the village government with its elected leader responsible for managing the rentals. In the other arm, agricultural extensionists employed by the state government not accountable to the village elected government will manage the rentals.
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After
The study has two interventions. In both interventions farmers will be able to rent drum seeders on a daily basis. In one arm the rental will be managed by the village government with its elected leader responsible for managing the rentals. In the other arm, agricultural extensionists employed by the state government not accountable to the village elected government will manage the rentals. An additional individually randomized intervention will be an unconditional 250 INR payment to large farmers in a village with an additional 1000 INR/ acre of drum seeded rice to be paid once the planting is verified by enumerators.
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Field
Intervention End Date
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Before
January 31, 2023
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After
January 04, 2024
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Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
The uptake primary outcome is whether a farmer used a drum seeder on any of their land. This is the overall primary outcome of the study for which I expect to be most powered to detect significant treatment effects.
The primary profit outcome is reduction in cultivation costs.
The primary extensionist effort outcome is whether the farmer ever reported receiving information from the extensionist on drum seeders.
The primary labor market outcome will be transplanting period (15 days after 10th percentile of seeding date to 30 days after 90th percentile of seeding date) wages for workers on the gram panchayats NREGA rolls who worked as transplanters during any of the past three winter seasons.
The primary political economy outcome will be the population level support for the sarpanch with the NREGA and farmer frames re-weighted using dual frame weights to reflect the overall population.
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After
The uptake primary outcome is whether a farmer used a drum seeder on any of their land. This is the overall primary outcome of the study for which I expect to be most powered to detect significant treatment effects.
The primary profit outcome is reduction in cultivation costs.
The primary extensionist effort outcome is whether the farmer ever reported receiving information from the extensionist on drum seeders.
The primary labor market outcome will be wages for workers on the gram panchayats NREGA rolls who worked as transplanters during either the past winter or summer seasons. The working data will be collected multiple times throughout the season and treatment and control gram panchayats will be matched based on nearest neighbor, based on smallest Kolmogorov distance of the distribution of planting dates. I plan on obtaining the full distribution of planting dates using remote sensing.
The primary political economy outcome will be the population level support for the sarpanch with the NREGA and farmer frames re-weighted using dual frame weights to reflect the overall population.
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Field
Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
We will sample from all farmers that cultivated rice in the past 3 winter seasons in the gram panchayat using the administrative crop booking database. We will further sample a particular plot within a farmers lands in the event some of the land is cultivated by someone other than the owner we will interview the cultivator of the sampled plot. While this is not a fully representative sample of all cultivators it is the best possible sample that can be constructed using administrative data.
For the laborer sample we will take a simple random sample from holders of active NREGA job cards in treatment and control villages.
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After
We will sample from all farmers that cultivated rice in the past winter and summer season seasons in the gram panchayat using the administrative crop booking database. We will sample 2 farmers from the 90th percentile and above in land, 5 from those above 2 acres, and 1 from those below 2 acres to reflect the fact that larger farmers are more likely to use drum seeders. We will further sample a particular plot within a farmers lands in the event some of the land is cultivated by someone other than the owner we will interview the cultivator of the sampled plot. While this is not a fully representative sample of all cultivators it is the best possible sample that can be constructed using administrative data.
For the laborer sample we will take a simple random sample from holders of active NREGA job cards in treatment and control villages.
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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
Village leaders, sarpanches, were asked to apply to be considered for the rental program. Among those that applied, one village was selected per cluster. These villages were randomized into control, a sarpanch rental arm, and an agricultural extensionist rental arm.
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After
Village leaders, sarpanches, were asked to apply to be considered for the rental program. Among those that applied, one village was selected per cluster. These villages were randomized into control, a sarpanch rental arm, and an agricultural extensionist rental arm. There is also a second level of individual randomization.
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Field
Randomization Method
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Before
Randomization was done on a computer using Stata 17. The randomization was stratified by district, historical use of drum seeders, and wages for transplanting labor.
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After
Randomization was done on a computer using Stata 17. The randomization was stratified by district, historical use of drum seeders, and wages for transplanting labor.
The individual randomization is stratified by any past direct seeding, extent of paddy cultivation, and gram panchayat. We will only randomize in GPs with more than 5 rentals in either the past winter or the current kharif season. Gram Panchayats with more than 20 rentals in either season will also be excluded.
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Field
Randomization Unit
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Before
The administrative name for the unit of randomization is confusingly "cluster." The agriculture department defines the group of 3-5 gram panchayats, village level administrative unit, in which agricultural extensionists work as a "cluster". One gram panchayat was selected from each cluster and then randomization was done at the cluster level to ensure each agricultural extensionist only handled one treatment gram panchayat of either type.
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After
The administrative name for the unit of randomization is confusingly "cluster." The agriculture department defines the group of 3-5 gram panchayats, village level administrative unit, in which agricultural extensionists work as a "cluster". One gram panchayat was selected from each cluster and then randomization was done at the cluster level to ensure each agricultural extensionist only handled one treatment gram panchayat of either type.
A second level of individual randomization will take place at the farmer level. This randomization will take place among farmers with more than 2 acres of historical paddy cultivation who picked up and fully listened to an IVRS call describing the benefits of drum seeding. This filter is necessary since only a subset of the phone numbers in the government crop booking database are valid. The individual randomization was clustered by village and experience using a drum seeder. Those that had used a drum seeder themselves or seen a drum seeded field in the village were treated as the "experienced" group all others were treated as "inexperienced" for the purpose of randomization.
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Field
Planned Number of Observations
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Before
2,888
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After
2,888, 172 individually randomized
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Field
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
100 clusters sarpanch rents, 100 clusters AEO rents, and 161 clusters control
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After
100 clusters sarpanch rents, 100 clusters AEO rents, and 161 clusters control. 86 treatment and 86 control individual farmers.
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