Using satellites and phones to evaluate and promote agricultural technology adoption: Evidence from smallholder farms in India

This paper evaluates a low-cost, customized soil nutrient management advisory service in India. As methodological contribution, we examine whether and in which settings satellite measurements may effective at estimating both agricultural yields and treatment effects. The intervention improves self-reported fertilizer management practices, though not enough to measurably affect yields. Satellite measurements calibrated using OLS produce more precise point estimates than farmer-reported data, suggesting power gains. However, linear models, common in the literature, likely produce biased estimates. We propose an alternative procedure, using two-stage least squares. In settings without attrition, this approach obtains lower statistical power than self-reported yields; in settings with differential attrition, it may substantially increase power. include a "cookbook" and code that should allow other researchers to use remote sensing for yield estimation and program evaluation.