Relieving Capital Constraints for Rice Farmers – Evidence from Warehouse Receipts System in Senegal

Last registered on June 07, 2018

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Relieving Capital Constraints for Rice Farmers – Evidence from Warehouse Receipts System in Senegal
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003040
Initial registration date
June 06, 2018

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
June 07, 2018, 2:34 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Paris School of Economics

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
World Bank

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2018-06-08
End date
2019-12-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Institutions in agricultural value chains play a substantial role in addressing market imperfections affecting value chain performance and actors. As such, they condition the path of agricultural transformation. For example, financial instruments available to value chain actors determine who gets access to credit, and whether poor farmers can undertake optimal agricultural commercialization and storage strategy. The existing evidence suggests that farmers in developing countries, are often unable to take advantage of post-harvest price fluctuations and are forced to sell their production right after harvest to satisfy immediate cash needs, when prices are lowest. To the extent that this is verified, financial instruments which can relieve capital constraints immediately after harvest would yield sizeable impacts on farmers’ agricultural income. While such view is shared by many development economists, little is known about the actual effectiveness of various financial institutions or innovations, in the agricultural value chain. Our project will contribute to filling this gap by assessing, with a Randomized Controlled Trial, the impact of Warehouse Receipts Systems (WRS) on farmer’s access to post-harvest credit, storage patterns, income and overall welfare. Using a two-stage randomization design, we will capture externalities inside group of producers and test if the program may also increase selling prices for non-treated producers in treated groups. This research is embedded into a pilot WRS program being implemented by the Government of Senegal in the rice sector, with technical support from the International Financial Corporation (IFC).
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Pouliquen, Victor and Guigonan Serge. 2018. "Relieving Capital Constraints for Rice Farmers – Evidence from Warehouse Receipts System in Senegal." AEA RCT Registry. June 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3040-1.0
Former Citation
Pouliquen, Victor and Guigonan Serge. 2018. "Relieving Capital Constraints for Rice Farmers – Evidence from Warehouse Receipts System in Senegal." AEA RCT Registry. June 07. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3040/history/30452
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
A WRS is an institutional arrangement to provide farmers with more flexibility in marketing decisions and serving as a mechanism to access more credits (Coulter et al., 2002). With this system, farmers can bring agricultural commodities to a certified warehouse and receive receipts certifying the quantity, quality and location of the commodity stored. These receipts provide a secure system whereby stored agricultural commodities can serve as collateral for post-harvest credits. As such, WRS have the potential to generate several interrelated benefits to actors along the value chain. They can provide infrastructures and institutions improving efficiencies along the chain, while generating direct welfare gains for the farmers through capital constraint relief, temporal arbitrage, and improved market access. They also bear the potential to curtail cheating on weights and measures, ease access to finance at all levels in the marketing chain, moderate seasonal price variability and promote instruments to mitigate price risks. Coulter et al. (2002) discussed these potential benefits in terms of: (i) trade facilitation, (ii) market efficiency enhancement, (iii) easing access to rural finance, (iv) mitigating price risks, and (v) cost effective management of food reserves.

The government of Senegal through the Ministry of Commerce, with technical assistance from the IFC, is introducing WRS in the country, through a pilot WRS project in the rice sector in the Senegal valley. The overall objective is to support increased access to finance to value chain actors in the agricultural sector of Senegal, favoring the development of better storage facilities and building capacities of private and public stakeholders. The main activities of this pilot project include (i) creating a legal and regulatory environment for WRS, (ii) sensitization and training of stakeholders on the WRS, (iii) assistance to the warehousing industry. This pilot is very important for the government as lessons learnt will be used to inform scale up to other grains’ value chains and other regions. Above all, it would enable to provide an institutional enforcement mechanism that would enhance trustworthiness of financial institutions toward marginalized populations, promote inclusive growth and improve general welfare.
Intervention Start Date
2018-06-08
Intervention End Date
2018-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our primary outcomes of interest are the following:
1- Access to post harvest credit
2- Rice paddy selling price (average selling price per ton)
3- Farmers agricultural income
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
1- Access to post harvest credit will be measured using survey data on access to credit and using administrative data from the CNCAS (the local bank funding most agricultural activities in the region).

2- Averages of rice paddy selling prices will be measured using high frequency surveys asking farmers to record all their sells.

3- Farmers agricultural income will be measured using farmers survey data as the difference between farmers agricultural inputs (intrants, labor costs, time) and farmers revenue (quantities sold times prices).

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Our secondary outcome are the following:
4- Take up of WRS usage
5- Rice storage and inventories
6- Marketed surplus
7- Quality of rice paddy sold
8- Post-harvest losses
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
4- Take up of WRS usage: Indicator variable for whether the GIE/farmer stored part of the harvest in the program warehouses. This is an indicator of take-up. Measured using administrative data from the warehouse and from farmers survey data.

5- Rice storage and inventories: Quantities of Paddy in storage at various points in time during post-harvest period. Measured using high frequency surveys of farmers.

6- Marketed surplus: Total share of rice production sold by the following season. Measured using high frequency survey of farmers.

7- Quality of rice paddy sold : Grade score of paddy rice at time of destorage. Measured using high frequency surveys of farmers.

8- Post-harvest losses: Quantity of rice paddy lost (not sold and not consumed). Measured using high frequency surveys of farmers.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This project will focus on the following two main research questions:
Q1 – What is the impact of participating in the WRS on rice producers’ access to credit, rice selling prices, and agricultural income?

Q2- What is the impact of the WRS on selling prices inside producer groups?

The program will be implemented in one warehouse located in the village of Diagambal in the Senegal river valley. We estimate that rice producers living within 50km of this warehouse could be interested by the program.
There are two types of rice producers leaving within 50km of the warehouse: those who are organized in associations called group of producers and those who are independent. Our experimental design will be different for both groups.

For producers organized in group, our experimental design relies on a two-stages randomization. We will first randomize group of rice producers interested by the program into a treatment and a "pure" control group. Second, within treated group of producers, we will randomly allocate farmers who volontered for the program into a "final" treatment group benefiting from the program and a "spilover" control group composed by farmers not benefiting from the program who belongs to treated groups of producers.
The random selection ensures that the farmers in treatment and control groups are similar and that the comparison of these groups after the program implementation provides unbiased estimates of the impacts of the program.
The comparison of the "pure" control group with the "spilover" control group will allow us to measure indirect effects of the impact and local general equilibrium effects.

For independent rice producers, we will randomly allocate individual producers interested by the program into a treatment group that will receive the program and a control group that will not. This means that we will not be able to answer to our second research question on local impact on prices for independent producers.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization in office done using a computer.
Stratification on farmers and group of farmers characteristics will be done using baseline survey data.
Randomization Unit
For rice producers who are organized in groups there will be two levels of randomization: groups of rice producers will be first randomly allocated into a treatment and a "pure" control group. Second, within treated group of producers, 5 producers will be randomly allocated to the "final" treatment group receiving the program.

For independent rice producers (not organized in group), the randomization will be done at the individuel level.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
We identified 138 group of producers.
Sample size: planned number of observations
10 rice producers (on average) per group of producers will be included in the sample. So 1380 rice producers in total. 110 independent rice producers will be included in the study.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
For groups of producers:
- Treatment group: 69 groups of producers, 345 producers in final treatment group and 345 producers in "spilover" control group
- Pure control group: 69 groups of producers, 690 rice producers.

For independent rice producers:
- Treatment group: 55 producers
- Control group: 55 producers
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Paris School of Economics
IRB Approval Date
2017-11-27
IRB Approval Number
2017-022

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials