Realizing the potential of digital development: The case of agricultural advice.

ABSTRACT: The rapid spread of mobile phones creates potential for sustainably raising agricultural productivity for the 2 billion people living in smallholder farming households. Meta-analyses suggest that providing agricultural information via digital technologies increased yields by 4% and the odds of adopting recommended inputs by 22%. Benefits likely exceed the cost of information transmission by an order of magnitude. The spread of GPS-enabled smartphones could increase these benefits by enabling customized information, thus incentivizing farmers to contribute information to the system. Well-known distortions in markets for information limit the ability of such systems to reach the socially efficient scale through purely commercial means. There is a clear role for public support for digital agr

SUBMITTER: Fabregas R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10859166 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature