Confidence and information usage: Evidence from soil testing in India
Informational barriers are often considered to be a major constraint to the adoption of improved farming practices, inputs, and technologies by smallholder farmers. In the Indian context, it is widely believed that farmers misapply chemical fertilizers because they lack scientific information on soi...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | Inglés |
| Published: |
Wiley
2025
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/172962 |
| _version_ | 1855543226754138112 |
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| author | Gars, Jared Fishman, Ram Kishore, Avinash Rothler, Yoav Ward, Patrick S. |
| author_browse | Fishman, Ram Gars, Jared Kishore, Avinash Rothler, Yoav Ward, Patrick S. |
| author_facet | Gars, Jared Fishman, Ram Kishore, Avinash Rothler, Yoav Ward, Patrick S. |
| author_sort | Gars, Jared |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | Informational barriers are often considered to be a major constraint to the adoption of improved farming practices, inputs, and technologies by smallholder farmers. In the Indian context, it is widely believed that farmers misapply chemical fertilizers because they lack scientific information on soil conditions and corresponding fertilizer recommendations, thus resulting in imbalanced and potentially detrimental fertilizer application. Policymakers are frequently interested in providing farmers with various streams of information to overcome these informational barriers to optimize farming activities. However, such informational interventions frequently fail either because generic recommendations may be ill-suited for decision makers in highly heterogeneous agricultural environments or because farmers' beliefs may be so entrenched as to make them unresponsive to new information. We implemented a field experiment in Bihar, India to test whether plot-specific fertilizer recommendations affect farmers' fertilizer use. We find little evidence for sizable impacts on fertilizer use in general, though impacts are more apparent for low cost or costless recommendations such as increasing the use of highly subsidized fertilizers or shifting the timing of application. Despite modest evidence of such effects, even those fall short of their potential magnitude. We show that treated farmers who are less confident in their subjective beliefs about optimal fertilizer application rates (i.e., with more disperse priors) are more responsive to the recommendations and have a higher ex ante willingness to pay for soil testing. These results suggest that heterogeneity in beliefs may constrain the overall effectiveness of information provision, even when the information is tailored to individual farms.
JEL Classification: D83, O13 |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | CGSpace172962 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| publisherStr | Wiley |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace1729622025-12-08T10:06:44Z Confidence and information usage: Evidence from soil testing in India Gars, Jared Fishman, Ram Kishore, Avinash Rothler, Yoav Ward, Patrick S. fertilizers soil analysis smallholders Informational barriers are often considered to be a major constraint to the adoption of improved farming practices, inputs, and technologies by smallholder farmers. In the Indian context, it is widely believed that farmers misapply chemical fertilizers because they lack scientific information on soil conditions and corresponding fertilizer recommendations, thus resulting in imbalanced and potentially detrimental fertilizer application. Policymakers are frequently interested in providing farmers with various streams of information to overcome these informational barriers to optimize farming activities. However, such informational interventions frequently fail either because generic recommendations may be ill-suited for decision makers in highly heterogeneous agricultural environments or because farmers' beliefs may be so entrenched as to make them unresponsive to new information. We implemented a field experiment in Bihar, India to test whether plot-specific fertilizer recommendations affect farmers' fertilizer use. We find little evidence for sizable impacts on fertilizer use in general, though impacts are more apparent for low cost or costless recommendations such as increasing the use of highly subsidized fertilizers or shifting the timing of application. Despite modest evidence of such effects, even those fall short of their potential magnitude. We show that treated farmers who are less confident in their subjective beliefs about optimal fertilizer application rates (i.e., with more disperse priors) are more responsive to the recommendations and have a higher ex ante willingness to pay for soil testing. These results suggest that heterogeneity in beliefs may constrain the overall effectiveness of information provision, even when the information is tailored to individual farms. JEL Classification: D83, O13 2025-10 2025-02-11T17:55:30Z 2025-02-11T17:55:30Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/172962 en https://www.theigc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Fishman-et-al-Policy-Brief-2019.pdf https://purl.umn.edu/235705 https://hdl.handle.net/10568/146418 Open Access Wiley Gars, Jared; Fishman, Ram; Kishore, Avinash; Rothler, Yoav; and Ward, Patrick S. 2025. Confidence and information usage: Evidence from soil testing in India. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 107(5): 1406-1437. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajae.12513 |
| spellingShingle | fertilizers soil analysis smallholders Gars, Jared Fishman, Ram Kishore, Avinash Rothler, Yoav Ward, Patrick S. Confidence and information usage: Evidence from soil testing in India |
| title | Confidence and information usage: Evidence from soil testing in India |
| title_full | Confidence and information usage: Evidence from soil testing in India |
| title_fullStr | Confidence and information usage: Evidence from soil testing in India |
| title_full_unstemmed | Confidence and information usage: Evidence from soil testing in India |
| title_short | Confidence and information usage: Evidence from soil testing in India |
| title_sort | confidence and information usage evidence from soil testing in india |
| topic | fertilizers soil analysis smallholders |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/172962 |
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