Empowering Farmers to Adopt Agricultural Recommendations
A quick glance at agricultural input use data from developing countries reveals a large dispersion in take up of improved inputs and practices across farms. One explanation is that this is a problem resulting from limited information, credit constr...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/472061600147878799/Empowering-Farmers-to-Adopt-Agricultural-Recommendations http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34464 |
| Summary: | A quick glance at agricultural input use
data from developing countries reveals a large dispersion in
take up of improved inputs and practices across farms. One
explanation is that this is a problem resulting from limited
information, credit constraints, risk, poor input quality,
and/or behavioral biases. An alternative view is that
farmers are in fact making optimal adoption decisions, and
differences among farmers instead reflect heterogeneity in a
fixed factor such as soil quality. The authors test whether
rainfed farmers in Tlaxcala, Mexico adopt tailored
recommendations based on soil analyses and whether
productivity improves as a result. The authors vary the
level of information specificity (whether recommendations
are based on the farmer's own plot or on a larger
geographical area) because individually tailored information
may be more effective but is also more expensive. The
authors also vary whether farmers can choose what inputs to
purchase by offering an inflexible grant that subsidizes
only the recommended inputs or a flexible one that gives
farmers the choice of which inputs to purchase. |
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