Examining the impacts of value-chain development in agro-processing in India

Last registered on October 15, 2021

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Examining the impacts of value-chain development in agro-processing in India
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0008374
Initial registration date
October 13, 2021

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
October 15, 2021, 3:43 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
International Inititative for Impact Evaluation

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2021-11-10
End date
2023-10-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We study the impact of value chain development in women’s farmer producer organisations on household and women’s economic outcomes and their agency in the enterprise and the household. The project “Gramya-shakti” aims to collectivise rural women into producer groups for processing of local spices for sale in high-end urban markets. We propose a village level randomised evaluation design by which the project will be rolled out on randomly selected spice-producing villages. The control villages were be intervened under the project. We use three rounds of household and enterprise panel data and process level data to estimate program impacts and understand the mechanisms of change.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Banerjee, Shreya, Bidisha Barooah and Jane Hammaker. 2021. "Examining the impacts of value-chain development in agro-processing in India." AEA RCT Registry. October 15. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8374-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Under Gramyashakti, ACCESS will establish and scale four new spice processing farmer producer companies in the states of Rajasthan, Odisha and West Bengal, mobilizing at least 800 female participants (Table 1). The main interventions proposed in the first year of implementation are (i) technical training on spice processing and storing, (ii) training on business management and strategy, (iii) training on gender and leadership and (iv) establishing four new common processing facilities. Towards the end of the second year, and once market linkages have been established through B2B and B2C channels, spices procured by the company will be marketed under a high-value brand.
Intervention Start Date
2021-11-30
Intervention End Date
2023-07-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Women's participation in entrepreneurial activities, Women’s social networks, Women's weaving skills, enterprises production, Women's income, Women's confidence, Women’s ownership and control over productive and financial assets, Sales/Profits of collective enterprise, Women’s agency in (i) personal (ii) household (iii) enterprise and (iv) community decision making
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
To measure project impact, we propose a cluster randomized control trial (CRCT) with the village as the unit of randomisation. The village is the appropriate unit for randomisation because these are the geographical areas from which women are mobilized into FPOs. An FPO typically includes 20-25 women from the same village who form the grassroot level group enterprise, which are federated into the producer company. ACCESS’s partner villages in Rajasthan, Odisha and West Bengal form our sampling frame.
An important criterion that determined the feasibility of including villages in the project was the distance of villages from the central processing units (CPUs) that would be set up by ACCESS under the project. The location of the CPUs were identified by the ACCESS team in collaboration with the livelihoods departments of the respective states and are therefore endogenous to village characteristics. We excluded these CPU villages and requested ACCESS to identify villages close to the CPU villages from where women could be mobilised. This gave us a sample frame of 91 villages. We used the Census 2011 data to match village characteristics of our sample village. We block randomised villages using census village administrative clusters (also called blocks) while ensuring balance on female literacy rate, percentage of women in agricultural cultivation, percentage of men in agricultural cultivation and whether the village was accessible by all weather roads
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Centralised computer in office
Randomization Unit
Village
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
91
Sample size: planned number of observations
3500
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
46
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Catalyst Foundation Institutional Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2021-10-02
IRB Approval Number
N/A

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