Opinion: Customized digital advice can help farmers adapt and thrive

The majority of the three billion people living in poverty rely on smallholder agriculture for their livelihoods, and climate change is posing new challenges. Changing weather patterns and more frequent extreme weather events make it harder to predict growing seasons, identify suitable crops and inputs, and protect harvests. There is a great need for reliable, timely, and localized agricultural information.

With rapid declines in hardware and cellular costs, digital agricultural advisory services have emerged as a promising tool to provide tailored information to millions of farmers. Over the past decade, governments, nonprofits, and businesses have expanded digital advisory tools to deliver agronomic advice, market insights, and weather forecasts at low cost. The Global Commission on Adaptation reported an average annual cost of just $1.75 per farmer across 15 climate-informed advisory services in 2021. However, relatively few services have both scaled and demonstrated real value for farmers –– an important distinction, as many early services such as SMS-based advisory in India and video-based extension in Burkina Faso, showed limited effects. Randomized evaluations can help generate credible measurements of impact and determine which services deliver real value to farmers, ensuring that scaling efforts focus on what works.

Fortunately, a growing evidence base, including over 15 randomized trials across eight countries, highlights the value of various digital advisory services — from SMS-based input promotions in Kenya and Rwanda to video-mediated extension in Ethiopia and voice-based agronomic advice in India. A meta-analysis, systematically aggregating findings across similar studies, also shows that, overall, these tools improve crop yields. In what we see as an important advance, there is now evidence that suggests these services can achieve significant impact when offered at scale by governments.

Scalable digital advice helps farmers navigate weather shocks

In our new study, we assessed the impact of Ama Krushi —now Krishi Samruddhi —, a free, voice-based digital agricultural advisory service co-designed and scaled by the government of Odisha and Precision Development. The service delivers weekly mobile messages with timely, localized advice and offers an automated hotline for on-demand guidance from local agronomists.

Advice is based on real-time, local information — such as alerting to harvest crops early before forecasted heavy rainfall and sending pest management advice based on crowdsourced information. At the time of the evaluation in 2021, the service was reaching 1.4 million farmers at just $0.70 per farmer annually. Today, as a government-run service, it serves close to 7 million farmers at $0.15 per farmer annually.

This study, conducted with rice farmers, reveals that Ama Krushi improves overall agricultural practices and harvest, while significantly reducing crop losses. Notably, it reduced the likelihood of severe crop loss — defined as losing more than half of a crop — by 10%, including a 26% decrease in severe loss due to pests and diseases.

The largest impacts are found in areas hit by weather shocks, such as excess or inadequate rainfall, which are expected to intensify with climate change. In the first year, nearly a third of the farmers experienced intense rainfall that submerged fields, yet the group offered Ama Krushi had nearly 10% higher harvests than the comparison group without Ama Krushi. In the following year, another third of farmers faced inadequate rainfall, and those in the Ama Krushi treatment group again fared better — with higher overall harvest and a 21% lower severe crop loss.

Farm profit data from 2021 suggest that Ama Krushi at scale can generate $9-$15 in agricultural profits for every $1 invested, solely from its impact in areas affected by excess rainfall. When considering the full range of benefits — including reductions in crop loss from pests and diseases and improved resilience to inadequate rainfall — the true benefit-cost ratio is likely substantially higher.

What can we learn?

First, one key advantage of digital services is that they can reach millions of farmers at a low cost, making their high return on investment dependent on scale. Our findings confirm that customized digital advisory can generate meaningful impact when scaled.

Second, impact varies by season and farmer needs. If a group of farmers doesn’t benefit from the service in one season, it doesn’t mean the service isn’t useful for them. The same advisory in the next season may become helpful, especially in the face of changing weather events.

Third, digital advisory services appear to “scale well.” While an in-person campaign to inform 7 million farmers about climate adaptation technologies would take extensive staff and planning, the number of staff required to serve 7 million farmers with Ama Krushi is only marginally higher than needed to serve 1 million farmers. The digital format ensures that messages are delivered accurately and on time, while also allowing the service provider to track in real-time who has received the advice.

Scaling these services, with AI and Machine Learning

At the time of the evaluation, Ama Krushi was already helping farmers protect against adverse weather events by customizing advice based on real-time weather and crowdsourced pest information. However, it was not yet using advanced technologies, like smartphones, remote sensing, and improved forecasts. This is exciting because it shows that, even with basic tools, digital advisory can improve farmers’ livelihoods. With the integration of newer technologies, these services have the potential to provide even more relevant, tailored information to wider groups of farmers.

Digital services also provide immediate feedback on user engagement, allowing for continuous, data-driven improvements. Just as tech firms use machine learning and artificial intelligence to recommend cat videos to cat lovers and dance videos to teens, the same tools could help discover which types of advice are most helpful for different farmers.

Smallholder farmers are among the most vulnerable to climate change. As policymakers seek to address extreme poverty and provide protection from the adverse consequences of climate change, this evidence base suggests that digital advisory services are an important, proven, and cost-effective tool.

Acknowledgments: This guest column is based on the findings of a study by Shawn Cole of Harvard Business School and Precision Development; Jessica Goldberg of University of Maryland; Tomoko Harigaya of Precision Development; and Jessica Zhu of Precision Development.