Speaker
Description
1. Introduction
Since the 1960s, the Indonesian rice farmers have widely adopted “Green Revolution” type techniques to achieve rapid increases in productivity. However, the extensive use of such techniques, specifically the overapplication of chemical fertilizers, has also induced tremendous environmental costs like degraded water quality, soil quality and biodiversity loss (Hazell, 2009; IAASTD, 2009; IFAD, 2013). Several reports (e.g. BAPPENAS, 2014) suggest that overapplication of nitrogen-rich fertilizers has caused widespread deterioration of agricultural land quality. Empirical evidence suggests that Indonesian smallholder farmers apply twice as much urea per hectare as large-scale farmers, and much more than what is officially recommended by the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture (Osorio et al., 2011).
Providing farmers with information about soil nutrient principles, balanced fertilizer application recommendations, along with the provision of low-cost soil tests could in principle increase farmers’ ability to manage their soils in a sustainable way. However, the provision of agricultural information has also become increasingly difficult in recent years. The number of agricultural extension workers, who once played an important role in Indonesian agricultural development (Rusliyadi et al., 2018; Utami et al., 2019; Anwarudin and Dayat, 2019), were drastically reduced during the Covid-19 pandemic (Dharmawan et al., 2021).
Our study uses a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to investigate the impact of soil health management training and manual rapid soil tests on the adoption of soil health management practices. Our study has the following objectives:
i. To evaluate the impact of hands-on-training on smallholder farmers’ fertilizer application behaviour and their knowledge about soil health management.
ii. To determine whether smallholder farmers incorporate soil tests in their health management practices, and if doing so helps them become more sustainable.
iii. To evaluate the costs of soil tests compared to their benefits (both economic and ecological).
2. Methodology
As our assessment is based on a RCT, we estimate treatment effects by a simple mean comparison at end-line. Further, to redress any potential bias stemming from minor structural differences across the two treatment groups and the control group and to increase the precision of our estimates, we condition on a set of controls. Moreover, we estimate ANCOVA models, i.e. we also condition on the baseline values of our outcomes to increase the statistical power of our analysis (McKenzie, 2012). The notation is as follows,
yi = b0 + b1t1 + b2yio + b3zi + ei
The outcome of interest yi is measured under three broad categories – i). adoption behaviour ii), yields and profits and iii). knowledge and perceptions. t1 is the treatment, b1 measures the causal effect of the treatment, yio is the baseline value of the outcome, b2 is the corresponding coefficient, zi are controls, b3 for the corresponding coefficients, and ei is the error term.
3. Study Design and Data
3.1. Study Design
The intervention was implemented as a RCT in 69 villages across three districts in the Province of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Information and training sessions on soil management practices were provided in a farmer group setting and villages were randomized into three groups: (1) Control group, (2) T1: 1-day training and (3) T2: 2-day training. In T2 we additionally offered soil testing allowing to investigate whether soil testing can augment the effect of soil health management training.
3.2. Data
The baseline survey was conducted in August and September 2022 and the endline survey between May and June 2023. In each wave, twelve enumerators interviewed 1,104 respondents. Each interview lasted between 40 – 60 minutes. Later, qualitative data was also collected in the form of focus group discussions (FGDs) and qualitative interviews to better understand how farmers asses soil quality and also to capture their perception of soil quality.
4. Results
4.1. Quantitative Results
Our findings suggest that the two-day training has a significant effect on reducing nitrogen application by almost 27 kg/ha, whereas the treatment does not seem to have any impact on phosphorus and kalium application. The ANCOVA results also suggest similar outcomes. Further, we observe that the two-day training had positive and significant effects on the adoption of sustainable farming practices like using Leaf Colour Chart (LCC) and Lime. On the other hand, we see a very low uptake of rapid-soil tests. Only six farmers out of 368 farmers tested their soil again. We also observe that the two-day training had a positive and significant effect on yield productivity, increasing harvest by about 1.6 – 1.8 quintal/ha. On the other hand, no significant impact of training was observed on knowledge levels of farmers.
4.2. Qualitative Results
The qualitative data collected through FGDs and semi-structured interviews reconfirms the results observed through quantitative data. Farmers appreciate that the trainings exposed them to new farming tools and techniques like LCC, MOL preparation, and lime application. They also report to have more ease in identifying the characteristics of a healthy soil. On the other hand, the most common reasons for low uptake of rapid-soil tests include - forgotten how to use the soil test kits, lack of confidence to use such kits without expert supervision, hesitancy in collecting soil test kit from other famer’s house.
5. Conclusion and Policy Implications
Our study demonstrates the potential of training to enhance the adoption of soil health management practices in a developing country context. We observe that cost effective methods like LCC usage and lime application are simple yet powerful practices that local decision makers could consider while conducting sustainable farming trainings. Furthermore, we observe that a two-day training on soil health management was indeed successful in reducing nitrogen-fertilizer application and consequently also increased yields. However, farmers seem to require more encouragement in using complex tools like soil tests. Overall, our study provides evidence bases for national and international organizations to design large scale programs addressing soil health management issues in the broader context of sustainable farming.
JEL codes: O12, O13, Q12, Q15, Q16
Key words: Technology adoption, soil tests, sustainability, soil health,
