Forecasts at scale: General equilibrium impacts of climate adaptation

Climate change will increase weather risk for small-holder farmers in low- income countries. We propose a novel approach to addressing this risk: accurate, long-range forecasts, which provide farmers information well in advance of the growing season about seasonal weather realizations. This project builds on Burlig et al (2024), a successful RCT in 250 villages which demonstrated that forecasts of the timing of the Indian summer monsoon's onset led farmers to substantially adjust up-front investments such as land use, crop choice, and inputs. In this project, we partner with the Indian Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare (MoA\&FW) to deliver monsoon onset forecasts to millions of farmers across Telangana, using a low-cost SMS platform operated by the government. We embed a randomized saturation design into this scale-up, enabling us to measure general equilibrium impacts of these forecasts, including information transfer between farmers and impacts on crop prices.