-Summary:

• Background and rationale: 

Although increasing farmers’ incomes and resilience to climate shocks and bridging gender gaps is critical to improving rural livelihoods and food security, the majority lack access to customized, relevant, timely, and actionable farm-related advice that could help them improve their farm productivity and livelihoods. Women farmers, who make up more than 40% of the agricultural labor force, face additional gender-based barriers to accessing information, inputs, and services, resulting in a productivity gap for women and further constraining their economic opportunities and decision-making participation.

 
In Ethiopia, poverty is especially acute in the agriculture sector, which is dominated by small-scale farmers (15.6 million households) who produce 90% of Ethiopia’s agricultural output. Climate change is altering rainfall patterns and bringing floods, droughts, and new pests and diseases, making farming more precarious. Although Ethiopia has invested heavily in public extension services – which provide farmers with education and technical assistance – with one of the highest ratios of extension agents (called development agents, or DAs, in Ethiopia) to farmers in the world, its traditional approach relies on dissemination of supply-driven, generalized recommendations. It is ill-equipped to respond to shifting climatic conditions or to provide gender-responsive services. 

The lack of an agile approach to quickly provide answers to farmers' questions, such as addressing a new crop pest, jeopardizes farmers’ livelihoods. Insufficient access to transportation, infrastructure, and training exacerbate the difficulties DAs face in delivering effective agricultural support to rural farmers. Solving this development challenge cost-effectively and at scale can support men and women small-scale farmers to take control of their futures by boosting farm productivity, resilience, and incomes, ultimately enhancing the well-being of rural communities

• Objectives:

1. To assess the efficacy of an AI tool called FarmerChat in 
   - providing small-scale farmers with access to timely, localized and actionable farm and market decision making recommendations.  
   - Encouraging best agronomic practices.
   - Improving Agricultural income and yield.
2. To explore how these effects vary by gender, location, other extension innovations, and the skills of DAs.
3. To Assess the cost-effectiveness of Farmer.Chat on these outcomes, as compared with the regular extension activities in these localities.

• Main methods:

Stratified cluster randomized control trial (RCT) in 15 woredas in the Oromia region.
The study will randomly allocate kebeles into treatment and control groups, with 187 kebeles in each. Farmer.Chat will be deployed to 426 DAs across the 187 treatment woredas, reaching 120,000 farmers in the treatment kebeles. Access to Farmer.Chat will be restricted to connections made from within the treatment kebeles geographic boundaries, preventing use by DAs or farmers in control kebeles. Random allocation will be stratified to assess variation of effects by gender, remoteness, and prior exposure to other extension methods