Fertilizer Management RCT: 105 Villages in Bangladesh (2012-2013)

This Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) dataset tracks fertilizer management across 105 villages in rural Bangladesh from 2012 to 2013. Collected by Mahnaz Islam for J-PAL, the repository includes three rounds of survey data—baseline, midline, and endline—at the farm-household and plot levels. The data measures the impact of providing leaf color charts and rule-of-thumb instructions on urea application and crop yields.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the correlation between leaf color chart usage and urea application quantity
• Evaluating changes in crop yield relative to fertilizer timing instructions
• Studying household time-use patterns following agricultural intervention

Strengths

• Three-round longitudinal design (baseline, midline, endline)
• Covers 105 distinct rural villages
• Includes symmetric baseline and endline data for difference-in-differences analysis

Limitations

• Temporal staleness as data was collected over a decade ago in 2012-2013
• Geographic bias limited to rural Bangladesh
• Specific focus on urea (nitrogen) may not generalize to other fertilizer types or soil nutrients

Provenance

Source

Mahnaz Islam, The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) Dataverse

Collection Method

Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) via household and plot-level surveys

Time Range

2012-09 to 2013-08

Freshness

Data is static, covering a specific experimental period between 2012 and 2013.

Geography

Bangladesh (105 rural villages)