Understanding livestock management decisions

The treatment group will receive a bookkeeping intervention where they will be incentivized to keep records.

2022-07-01

2022-11-01

Willingness-to-pay (WTP) for Newcastle Disease vaccine (in control and treatment groups) elicited using the Becker-deGroot-Marschak mechanism, an incentivized measure (i.e., a measure with real stakes); take-up of acaricides at market prices (in control and treatment groups).

Willingness to pay: The dollar amount the chicken caretaker states is the highest amount (maximum price) they would pay for different quantities of ND vaccine. The quantities will be based on average flock size in the baseline survey and discussions with the veterinary directorate. Because we will elicit participants’ willingness to pay for multiple quantities, we will select one of these quantities at random for implementation.
Take-up of acaricides: Whether the cattle caretaker chooses to purchase acaricides at market prices from the veterinary directorate staff member at endline.

Livestock management practices, expenditures on preventions/cures/vet services, reported livestock outcomes (deaths, illness), reported livestock productivity (e.g., milk and egg production), reported income from livestock

Livestock management practices:
- Time spent on manual tick removal in the last week
- Whether cattle grazed at communal grazing lands last week

Expenditures on preventions/cures/vet services:
- Total expenditures on chicken and cattle, respectively, in the past month
- Expenditures on chicken vaccines in the past month
- Expenditures on acaricides in the past month
- Expenditures on cattle vaccines in the past month

Reported livestock outcomes:
- Reported number of chicken and cattle deaths in the past three months, respectively
- Reported number of sick chicken and cattle in the past three months, respectively

Reported livestock productivity:
- Reported average weekly egg production over the past three months
- Reported average weekly milk production over the past three months

Reported income from livestock:
- Reported total income from chicken and cattle, respectively, over the past three months

The study will be conducted with chicken and cattle-owning households in Busia county. Households are eligible if they have at least one chicken and at least one milking cow, or expect to have a calf born within the next three months. We will collect data from two individuals per household: the primary caretaker of chickens and the primary caretaker of cattle. Thus, we will sample 600 individuals in 300 households. Prior to randomization, we will administer a baseline survey (visit 1). The treatment group will receive a bookkeeping intervention. After three months, we will elicit willingness-to-pay (WTP) for ND vaccine in control and treatment groups using an incentivized measure (i.e., a measure with real stakes) and administer an end-line survey (visit 3). In addition, we will study take-up of acaricides at market prices.

Not available

Randomization will be conducted at the household level. Treatment status will be assigned by a random number generator in SurveyCTO. Enumerators will remain blinded to the treatment status until after they administer both baseline surveys. Treatment status will be revealed once both questionnaires are complete.

Randomization is done at the household level.

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300 chicken caretakers, 300 cattle caretakers

Households will be randomized after completion of their baseline survey by a random number generator in surveyCTO. The expected treatment share is 50% control and 50% treatment.

Each of the main analyses will be conducted on a sample of 300 individuals. This sample size allows us to detect an effect size of 0.32 standard deviations of willingness to pay, at 80% power and a 5% significance level.