In this series of essays, we will attempt to derive lessons for policy implications from the randomized controlled studies that have happened in Nepal in the past. We used AEA Social Science Registry to track the randomized experiments. 

Randomized Experiments are a type of impact evaluation method, whereby a group of people are randomly assigned to one or more treatment groups to receive some intervention/treatment, and another group to a control group who do not receive any intervention/treatment. Conditional on the perfect random assignment, the actual effect of the intervention can be measured by comparing the outcomes between the treatment and the control group. To read more about these experiments and their methodologies, follow J-PAL resources.

In this first chapter, we will focus on the agricultural interventions that have been tried and tested by social scientists in Nepal. We were able to track 4 papers that utilize agricultural innovation to measure outcomes relating to adoption of new agricultural technologies, improving farming practices, market behavior, and socio-economic outcomes of farmers. 

Experiment 1 

Janzen (2018) evaluated the impact of a livestock transfer and training program that sought to reduce poverty in about 60 VDCs across the Hilly & Terai region of Nepal. A similar program BRAC found positive effects on food security, assets, finance, income, and mental health. Women empowerment level increased initially, but disappeared in the long run. 

The authors use 3 interventions and compare it with the control group, as explained above. The experiment offers self-help groups, where women’s self-help groups were created that met regularly and shared a joint savings account, technical training on agricultural practices, values based training (on accountability, sustainability, sharing, caring for others, etc.), and goats as livestock transfers. So, a treatment group received all of these interventions (A), another received everything except goats (B), and the last group received everything except the values based training (C). The experimenters ask the people who receive these interventions to pay it forward to an assigned person from their community. 

After 1.5 years of intervention, the authors find that the goat transfer and training program in Nepal significantly increases financial inclusion and women’s empowerment. However, the authors do not find significant changes in assets, incomes, expenditures, physical health, or food security. One of the challenges of scaling up with this program is that the cost per benefit is high, but it is relatively low compared to other alternatives like cash transfer programs. 

Experiment 2 

In this experiment, the authors try using 4 different mechanisms to investigate the effectiveness of these mediums in delivering messages regarding adoption of fertilizer management practices for DAP and urea fertilizers in maize crop. The mediums include: Radio Program, Voice Response Messages, Phone App, and Traditional Extension Training. The experiment was conducted between 60 cooperatives among 4 districts: Dang, Surkhet, Palpa, and Kavre. 

The phone app, M Krishi, contained slides with illustrations on the techniques on how to count leaves to apply urea fertilizers at specific stages of maize plant growth, as well as supporting text and an option to press the audio to listen to voice recordings reading the text out loud for illiterate people. The contents in the app were similar to the content provided in other interventions.

The authors find that the phone app works the best in delivering the messages. The effectiveness is measured in 2 ways: agronomy test scores and adoption of the agricultural practices. The phone app increases test scores by 5-7 percentage points and adoption of urea by about 8%. The traditional extensive training increases adoption of urea by about 12%. However, none of the interventions are found to increase the adoption of DAP. These impacts are much stronger in women, and among the poorest & richest income quartile.

Phone apps could potentially be cost-effective methods to improve farmers’ knowledge and practices. The key challenge in this study is that the study faces a difficult problem of whether the results would be similar if scaled throughout the country. The limitation of having a smartphone and navigating the app poses a big problem among the most rural areas, but this could be overcome with some basic training although it could add the cost of scaling up. 

Experiment 3

The next experiment focuses on the use of smartphones to assess collective action, communication, and coordination among smallholder livestock cooperatives in Nepal. This phone application called e-Khasi Bazar explores the key challenges from the Experiment 2 as well. The cooperatives with illiterate members with fewer assets performed worse than the cooperatives with literate members having more assets. 

The cooperatives that were able to coordinate were able to increase the prices of goats by about $24. However, in overall, 37% of the cooperatives did not make a single sale through the app. The biggest challenge in this procedure was that it required cooperative members to communicate through SMS which faced challenges through unreliable networks and additional cost of sending SMS. The implementation of technological innovations pose a huge burden because of the risk of its low uptake rather than its inefficiency. Therefore, the scaling up of technological innovations requires caution in understanding these mechanisms.  However, this experiment does not entirely disvalidate the previous experiment that did not rely on network coverage while changing farmers’ behaviors and practices. 

Conclusion

Through these randomized experiments, we find some robust evidence that proves effective in Nepal, which have been proven in other parts of the world. The livestock transfer and training programs are effective in the short run in improving women empowerment and financial inclusion. The Phone App increased the agricultural knowledge of farmers and adoption of innovative practices. But, the large-scale implementation of technological innovations may face low uptake problems in mostly less-literate communities.