Learning about sustainable adoption of green agricultural technologies: Experimental evidence from training with organic farming practices and soil tests in Indonesia

• Applicant: Professor Michael Grimm, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Policy, Agricultural Sociology ; Economic Policy, Applied Economics
• Term: from 2021 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 467441310

This project uses an experimental design to evaluate the longer-term impact of organic farming training in Indonesia, a country that struggles with land degradation and overuse of agricultural inputs but where policy makers and non-governmental organizations have also expressed strong interest to promote organic farming. We build upon a previous research project that investigated the short-term impact of organic farming training. The project included a randomized control trial in which 1,200 smallholders in Indonesia were interviewed in 2018 and 2019 and 600 smallholders were invited to an organic farming training (a third wave of data collection is planned for 2021). In the proposed project, we will add a second training intervention to deepen farmers’ knowledge about organic farming practices and motivate them further to experiment with these practices. The training will be complemented by digital soil testing. A fourth wave of data collection will be implemented in this project, thereby creating unique panel data on sustainable farming.With this project, we aim to make several contributions. First, only few studies have differentiated between initial and longer-term adoption, we aim to add to these few studies with an explicit focus on repeated interventions and longer-term adoption in contrast to just experimentation. Most existing studies evaluated the impact of agricultural extension only once a short time after the intervention took place. While short-term effects can be informative, understanding the true effect of information provision requires a better understanding of its longer-term consequences. Moreover, research is still scarce when it comes to the effect of repeated information provision. With our novel focus on longer-term adoption patterns, we cannot only identify late adopters, but also the response to repeated interventions.Second, evidence on the causal effect of adopting organic farming remains limited, in particular in developing and emerging countries. Many existing studies do not control for possible selection bias. Yet, if more talented, richer or more motivated farmers tend to self-select into organic farming, a comparison between organic and conventional farmers is misleading. In contrast to many previous studies that were concerned with organic farming, the randomized design in this project allows to analyze the causal effect with respect to adoption and the implied welfare effects.Third, the project is designed to contribute to the growing literature on the potential of low-cost digital technologies to provide individualized farm-relevant information to smallholders in developing and emerging countries. In this project, training is combined with soil tests based on a low-cost digital App. Customized soil information could be particular relevant for sustainable farming methods as these are typically more knowledge intensive.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants