Two-sided Subsidies to Support Biofortified Crop Adoption in Guatemala

Our partner organization works with a network of agricultural input sellers to sell climate-resilient, biofortified seeds. Expanding the biofortified agrodealer network provides an opportunity to study how to structure seed subsidies so that they are willing to stock and promote climate-resilient, biofortified seeds. Most agrodealers are small businesses with few employees. It can be risky for them to stock new seed varieties when they are not familiar with how seeds perform in their local market. In Guatemala, many farmers grow landrace varieties of maize. However, even among landrace growers, it is common to purchase fertilizer and/or herbicides each year. Agrodealers provide a touchpoint to expand adoption on the intensive margin (farmers who switch hybrid varieties) and extensive margin (increasing first-time hybrid adoption).

We will implement a listing procedure to identify 3-4 communities near agrodealers, targeting communities with growers who typically plant non-hybrid varieties. We will randomly assign communities to one of three treatment arms, 1. listing only (control), 2. seed information session, 3. information session plus coupon distribution. The information session will be led by our partner organization and will train farmers on hybrid seed planting and describe the nutrition benefits of biofortified varieties. The information session plus coupon group will receive a coupon with random discount levels to encourage adoption. To incentivize input sellers to promote biofortified seeds to new farmers, we will randomly offer half of the agrodealers a subsidy for each client that buys biofortified seed.

2024-03-06

2025-08-01

Farmers: coupon redemption (take-up), quantity of seed purchased, complementary input use, agricultural productivity (yields, profits), consumption of bio-fortified maize.
Agrodealers: biofortified seed sales (number of farmers, total volume)

Sources of heterogeneity: Farmer type (hybrid grower, non-hybrid grower), socio-economic strata, indigenous versus non-indigenous; farmers with small children and pregnant mothers, past climate related losses (wind and/or drought), willingness-to-pay

For the 2024 pilot, we start with a list of 70 agrodealers with ties to our partner organization. We select a subset of agrodealers that meet the following criteria: only one establishment per owner, primarily sells to end consumers, balanced across regions. From a final list of 14, we randomly assign 7 to control, and 7 to the treatment group who receive an extra subsidy for sales of biofortified seeds. We run a listing procedure to identify 4 communities per agrodealer that meet the following criteria: primarily agricultural communities, presence of farmers that grow non-hybrid seeds, willing to participate, and reasonable distance to agrodealer location. We randomly assign 1/3 of communities to each treatment arm (control, information session, and information session plus coupon distribution). Community leaders help invite 20 farmers per community. Farmers located in communities drawn for coupon distribution will receive a scrach-off coupon that will reveal a discount level that varies between 26-77%.

Not available

Agrodealers and community assignment - in an office by computer. Farmer coupons randomization will be scratch-off coupons distributed publicly.

Two levels of clusters - agrodealers and villages and one level of individual randomization (farmer-level for communities selected for coupon distribution).

Yes

pilot: 14 agrodealers, 42 communities.

840 farmers.

7 agrodealers control, 7 agrodealers bonus incentive, 14 communities (280 farmers) control, 14 communities (280 farmers) information session, and 14 communities information plus coupons (280 farmers).