In recent times lot of research has been focussed on behavioral economics. Behavioural economics is a method of economic analysis that implies psychological insights into human behaviour to explain economic decision-making. The prevailing wisdom portrays a human being as a very thoughtful, logical person who believes in analysis and careful planning before making any decision. He is supposed to do things that help him in future. He plans not to smoke as it may affect his lungs, he does not eat junk food, and he ‘knows’ that if he does not use proper pesticides crops will be destroyed. He observes all necessary protocols to ensure that the crop is well taken care of. Many economic theories are based on this very popular set of assumptions. But the real irony is that such people exist only in our minds and not in reality. People smoke despite ‘knowing’ that they will have cancer. But they believe that it will not affect them. Farmers procrastinate and wait till the last cycle while spraying fertilizers or pesticides hoping that their crops will not get damaged. So the question here is why people behave in such self-destructive and irrational ways often despite knowing, at a cognitive level, that this is doing no good to them. This is where we need to examine the role of alternatives in the decision-making process. Framing the alternatives or choices ‘differently’ can change and influence the way we make our decisions. In a way it is manipulation. We know manipulation is a dirty word but it works. Let me quote verbatim a para from Chris Lambert to highlight the point. “Framing alternatives differently can, for example, change people’s preferences regarding risk. In a 1981 Science paper, “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice,” Tversky and Kahneman presented an example. “Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease which is expected to kill 600 people,” they wrote. “Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed.” Choose Program A and a projected 200 people will be saved. Choose Program B, and there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved, and a two-thirds probability that no one will be saved. The authors reported that 72 per cent of respondents chose Program A, although the actual outcomes of the two programs are identical. Most subjects were risk averse, preferring the certain saving of 200 lives. The researchers then restated the problem: this time, with Program C, “400 people will die,” whereas with Program D, “there is a one-third probability that no one will die, and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die.” This time, 78 per cent chose Program D again, despite identical outcomes. Respondents now preferred the risk-taking option. The difference was simply that the first problem phrased its options in terms of lives saved, and the second one as lives lost; people are more willing, apparently, to take risks to prevent lives being “lost” than to “save” lives.”
The central point of this article is that through a set of manipulated choices or alternatives, we can influence farmers to adopt better crop protection behaviour. Unfortunately, most of the input companies supplying fertilizers, pesticides, seeds etc. flood the farmer with a whole lot of technical advice and information. The underlying assumption is that farmers would read everything carefully and then do the farming as per the instructions. But the reality is far from different. In many instances during harvesting time the farmer is tense, not sure if it is going to rain, and is under debt. The cognitive understanding of the technical details is far from his mind. It is here that we can ‘nudge’ the farmer using ICT tools effectively. Let me highlight this by giving an example of a patient in a hospital. He is sick, confused and disturbed not knowing what is happening to him. Now suppose the doctors send him on his smartphone an hourly update on his condition with messages about what medicine he should take and what impact it will have on his well-being. Am sure that this nudge will force him to look forward to these messages and follow the instructions diligently. So the nudge is centred around his well-being. Likewise, an intelligently thought out set of messages, during the harvesting time would ensure that all instructions are followed meticulously by the farming community. In other words, we are framing the choices for the farmers which he will follow ‘intuitively’. Needless to add these messages have to be ‘personalized’ and customized. This is the nudge theory in application using ICT as one set of tools. There could be many such tools to influence farmers to follow better agriculture practices. More of that in a subsequent article.
