The fourth session of the FAS Young Scholars’ Online Seminar Series 2022-23 featuring Aritri Chakravarty, Assistant Professor, Dr B.R. Ambedkar School of Economics University, Bengaluru, was  held on July 28, 2022. The seminar saw an attendance of 45 researchers from across the world.

Aritri spoke about the “Impact of Information on Technical Efficiency of Agricultural Production in India,” which she estimated using cross-sectional data from NSSO’s 70th round. She employed the method of propensity score matching to compare the technical efficiency of farmers who accessed information and who did not.

Aritri began her presentation by mentioning the nature of agricultural production, which involves uncertainties and risks associated with weather and technology. She argued that information helps in reducing these and that it is also important for farmers to transition to modern inputs.

There is ample evidence to show that information helps in agricultural development, such as in reducing post-harvesting losses, increasing incomes, etc. A key channel of information has been the government through various schemes such as “ATMA” which was introduced in 2005. Despite the positive effects of information, the number of households accessing information had stagnated in the 2000s, she said.

The results of this method show that users of information have a slightly higher efficiency than non-users but the impacts vary largely across different sources of information. Aritri’s findings hinted at a source effect working at large that tends to dampen the true effect of information.

The session was Chaired by Barbara Harriss-White, Emeritus Professor of Development Studies, University of Oxford, and Manjula M from Azim Premji University acted  as the discussant.

A Q&A session, moderated by the Chair, followed the presentation.

For more details, contact us at events[at]fas[dot]org[dot]in.