Can mobile phones improve agricultural outcomes? Evidence from a randomized experiment in Niger

The widespread growth of mobile phone coverage worldwide has offered new potential for increasing rural households' access to information and public and private transfers. Yet despite the proliferation of mobile phone-based interventions in the agricultural sector, there is mixed evidence on their impact. We report the results of a randomized evaluation in Niger, in which rural households increased their access to information technology and their capacity to use it. We find that households in treated villages planted a more diverse basket of crops, particularly marginal cash crops grown by women. This did not increase the likelihood of selling these crops or the farm-gate price received, suggesting that other market failures need to be addressed to improve farmers' welfare.