Value of Customized Advice : Experimental Evidence from India 1 PRELIMINARY DRAFT

Optimal agricultural practices are highly dependent on local conditions, such as weather and soil fertility; yet, farmers in developing countries often lack accurate information on relevant local conditions and precise recommendations. We examine the effect of customized advice on farming decisions in the context of fertilizer recommendations for cotton farmers in Gujarat, India. We experimentally varied access to plot-level soil fertility information and corresponding fertilizer recommendations, delivered via Soil Health Cards (SHCs) and appropriately timed voice calls. Customized advice significantly increased adoption of recommended fertilizers by 3 12 percentage points during the sowing period, leading to a 0.121 standard deviation reduction in the fertilizer gap. These results highlight the potential importance of precise information in improving soil fertility management and agricultural productivity. 1 We gratefully acknowledge financial support from ATAI. We thank Claudia Carbajal Morelos, Arnesh Chowdhury, for superb research management and support, Jaagruti Didwania, Azfar Karim, Grady Killeen, and Victor Perez for excellent research assistance, Tarun Pokiya for his agricultural expertise and suggestions, and the PAD India team for implementation support. Disclosure: Shawn Cole is a board member of Precision Agriculture for Development (PAD), an NGO specializing in delivering mobile phone-based extension to smallholder farmers. Cole does not receive any financial compensation from the organization. Harigaya and Krishna are employed by PAD. Cole: scole@hbs.edu; Harigaya: tharigaya@precisionag.org; Krishna: akrishna@precisionag.org