|
Field
Abstract
|
Before
With the advent of mobile phones and the internet in India, channels of information exchange have widened more than ever before. A by-product of this development has been the expansion of the ‘digital agriculture’ movement in various directions, one of them being smartphone agriculture. In this paper, I study the effects of farmer-Whatsapp groups on smartphone agriculture adoption rates. More specifically, by collecting data from a unique field experiment spanning 100 Indian villages, I test whether long-distant (online) connections lead to better diffusion and adoption of new agricultural technology by bridging farmers from disparate parts of a region. I randomly assign villages to two treatment interventions, connecting farmers on across-village and within-village Whatsapp groups, to measure the differential effects of online farmer-interactions in these two types of groups. By facilitating online discussions on digital agriculture technology, and its benefits and challenges, I expect to see an increase in awareness and adoption rates of smartphone agriculture in both treatment groups. For villages with unfavorable baseline beliefs about smartphone agriculture, the across-village treatment is expected to have a greater effect on adoption rates than the within-village treatment.
|
After
With the advent of mobile phones and the internet in India, channels of information exchange have widened more than ever before. A by-product of this development has been the expansion of the ‘digital agriculture’ movement in various directions, one of them being smartphone agriculture. In this paper, I study the effects of farmer-Whatsapp groups on smartphone agriculture adoption rates. More specifically, by collecting data from a unique field experiment spanning 100 Indian villages, I test whether long-distant (online) connections lead to better diffusion and adoption of new agricultural technology by bridging farmers from disparate parts of a region. I randomly assign villages to two treatment interventions. In the first arm, I connect farmers on across-village moderated Whatsapp groups to facilitate online information sharing of farming practices. In the second arm, along with such Whatsapp groups we also simulate in-person connections by making the Whatsapp group participants meet physically to discuss several farming related topics over lunch. I then measure the differential effects of online farmer-interactions in these two types of groups. By facilitating online discussions on digital agriculture technology, and its benefits and challenges, I expect to see an increase in awareness and adoption rates of smartphone agriculture in both treatment groups. For villages with unfavorable baseline beliefs about smartphone agriculture, the treatment with both Whatsapp groups and in-person meetings is expected to have a greater effect on smartphone agriculture adoption rates than the only Whatsapp group treatment.
|