Shree Saha is passionate about data.

“For me, it’s matching reality and the data that I find to be quite exhilarating,” she says. “I realize that’s the nerd in me speaking, but I really like working with data quite a bit.”

It’s that passion for quantitative analysis that drives the TCI scholar’s doctoral research, which focuses on the use of digital tools by Indian shrimp farmers. “I feel we talk a lot about food systems both qualitatively and in means of anecdotal evidence, but there’s a lot of food systems research that’s happening that’s not yet been quantified,” she says. “I wanted my PhD to be able to do even 1% of that.”

She believes that, by pairing quantitative analysis with field-based research, her work can have a real impact on people’s lives. “Numbers have the power to drive people to make a lot of decisions, especially when it comes to food systems,” she says. 

Saha has long been interested in studying India’s rural food systems, but her interest in agricultural technology was piqued by a glut of agricultural companies pushing digital interventions—such as the delivery of weather forecasts via app or text messages—as she arrived at Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management as a PhD student in 2020. Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and the digital wave turned into a tsunami. As food delivery apps began servicing city dwellers, countless new apps targeted at farmers and rural populations also came into existence. Saha, however, was skeptical of the impact of these new tools.

“I always found that interesting, because when you look at newspaper articles or talk to people, they feel that this has a groundbreaking possibility,” she says. “However, if you go to the rural areas, you see that the adoption rates are very poor and people, in fact, prefer human interaction over any form of digital advisory platforms.”

She wanted to understand how these new, highly touted digital technologies worked and how their benefits for farmers and consumers alike could be maximized. She also knew that data alone couldn’t tell the whole story; she would need to meet the farmers where they were. Her curiosity eventually led her to the shrimp ponds dotting the coast of Odisha.

Smartphones and shrimp ponds

At its core, Saha’s research is about why people do or do not adopt new technology. There are plenty of documented reasons people choose not to use technology, including a lack of infrastructure, human capital and information. What makes Saha’s research particularly interesting is that the shrimp farmers she studies don’t suffer from such constraints. They have the resources, information, and skills necessary to use the digital tools that are readily available for shrimp farmers, but they still don’t use them. Why?

Before she began her project, Saha spent a summer conducting exploratory research across India, visiting agricultural fields, coffee and tea plantations, and aquaculture sites. In the fields and on the plantations, she found that high costs, like subscription fees and smartphone prices, often prevented farmers from using digital tools. But when she visited the shrimp ponds, those farmers were not only aware of apps that could aid their work, they were largely able to afford to use them.

“In my mind, I was trained thinking of the usual barriers of adoption, like resources, infrastructure or human capital,” Saha says. “When I went to the aquaculture fields, I was amazed that even when none of these conditions are actually holding as constraints, people still don’t adopt this technology.”

Back in Ithaca, Saha dove into the literature to search for reasons why these farmers weren’t using the new technology. In study after study, human-computer interaction and perceived complexity kept coming up. Using any new technology can be complicated, and sometimes the challenge of learning to use it is too much to handle. Or maybe an individual’s work is too overwhelming, and they can’t devote the energy to learning new tech.

“Numbers have the power to drive people to make a lot of decisions, especially when it comes to food systems,” [Saha] says.

Such perceptions of complexity are especially important in agriculture, where farmers often need immediate, reliable information. In such contexts, a person-person connection often trumps the digital option. An extension agent in India had told Saha that many farmers are comfortable using digital tools for some things, like weather forecasting, but for tasks that require more trust, such as determining fertilizer amounts, they prefer a person-to-person exchange. The agent referred to the dynamic as “Phygital.”

Saha set to work developing a research project that would test whether individualized training could reduce perceived complexity and increase the Odisha shrimp farmers’ willingness to use digital tools. The tool in question was Aquaconnect, a calculator app that allows farmers to reliably compute how much feed to put in their ponds. Increasing adoption of the app could potentially improve farmers’ productivity and increase their incomes.

Feeding is a tremendously consequential and complex part of shrimp farming. Add too little feed and the shrimp won’t reach their full growth potential. Add to much and risk poor water quality and disease. The species of shrimp, time the shrimp have been in ponds, and amount of feed leftover from the previous feeding all impact how much feed a farmer should use. Traditionally, farmers use charts on the backs of feed bags to determine how much to use per feeding, but they can be difficult to understand. The calculator greatly simplifies the process.

As part of her project, Saha conducted a randomized trial involving shrimp farmers in several districts across Odisha’s coastline. One group of farmers was trained to use the feed calculator app while another was trained to use the traditional feed charts. A control group received neither training. She and a team of enumerators then surveyed the farmers across four-and-a-half months to assess how the training impacted their perception of the calculator and whether they used it.

Saha measured the farmers’ perceived complexity using an index she created with indicators representing five different components of complexity: task; information; cost and returns; technological; and situational. The higher the score on the index, the greater the perceived complexity.

Practice makes perfect

Planning and executing a field-based study is an enormous undertaking, especially for a doctoral student. Things often go awry, which can affect the results of the study. For example, an enumerator (a person who collects survey data) might not be allowed access to a village or might be rebuffed by wary farmers. Saha, however, was able to avoid such pitfalls by relying on her considerable field experience.

Before she joined TCI as a doctoral student, Saha led one of the Reserve Bank of India’s flagship projects on financial literacy. The survey project began in nine states before expanding to a total of 14, with more than 36,000 respondents. Saha designed the survey instrument and trained state-level managers who then trained groups of enumerators for each state.

“Once you’ve done a project of that magnitude, I think the smaller ones become simpler,” she says.

Shree Saha speaks to her enumerators while conducting a survey of shrimp farmers in Odisha, India. (Photo provided)

Through that experience, she learned to foresee and preempt possible problems through protocols and procedures. “At least you know that if the problem comes, you know how to tackle it,” she says.

And the problems did come, including the arrests of some enumerators, whose questions about financial matters made some farmers uncomfortable. Experiences like that taught Saha the importance of relationship-building with local leaders and going through the proper channels. She also learned about survey dynamics that can affect the reliability of responses. For example, in one survey, anytime a woman was asked a question, her mother-in-law would respond on her behalf. In response, Saha created a separate survey module for the mother-in-law to complete so that her daughter-in-law would be free to respond honestly.

Armed with her experience, Saha bulletproofed her doctoral project against potential calamity. She conducted a short pilot survey to iron out any wrinkles in the survey instrument itself and ensured that she had all the necessary government permissions before sending her enumerators into the field. During the survey period, she spent days in each village building relationships with local authorities.

“That is never reflected in papers or any research discussion, but it’s a very important part of doing fieldwork to ensure that trust and permission is well established,” she says.

Still, all the experience in the world can’t prevent problems from arising in the field. In Odisha, follow-up surveys presented an issue, as they occurred in the peak of the shrimp farming season, when farmers are busiest. Saha and her team modified their schedules to reach farmers when they had some down time, but it made for some long nights.

“The shrimp farmers would finish the evening share of their work by 8:30, 9 p.m., and by the time we managed to talk to all the farmers, it would be midnight, if not later,” she says.

Support from Ithaca

Saha may have had experience planning and conducting surveys, but she received important support from TCI staff in Ithaca. She says that TCI administrator Brenda Jordan Daniels-Tibke and administrative assistant Terry Mingle, in particular, provided vital assistance finalizing contracts and processing payments.

“There is so much that goes on and is not reflected in the research that’s published,” Saha says. “The work put in by the admin staff, I don’t think people know what kind of effort they put in. Overall, all I can say is that I’m glad this infrastructure exists, because otherwise it’s impossible.”

TCI staff also helped Saha provide her enumerators with a special bit of recognition for their effort. They were all young master’s students studying economics, like Saha once was, and she took her role as a mentor to heart. When TCI Director Prabhu Pingali visited during the second half of the survey, support staff in Ithaca helped Saha design and print special certificates of recognition for the team members.

“That was a really nice touch, and the enumerators were really thrilled to have it,” Saha says. “For them it was a good experience because they were all students of economics, so to be able to see how theoretical research translates to active research in the field, they were quite impressed.”

Data and people

Saha will soon wrap up her research and complete her PhD. She wants to spend the next decade or so conducting research and is particularly interested in the intersection of climate change, big data and technology adoption in the Global South.

“I realize that research may be the only thing I’m talented at, or somewhat talented at,” she laughs. “I don’t have other skills!”

One thing that Saha is certain about is that she will continue to marry her passion for data with an emphasis on field-based research rooted in people’s lived experiences. Lacing up her boots and heading into the field will remain a key part of her work. It’s one of the major reasons why, years ago, she chose to study economics over accounting, another data-heavy field.

“That’s the only way I connect to people, and it makes me think deeply about issues,” she says.

Featured image: Shree Saha meets with TCI Director Prabhu Pingali (far right) and Associate Director Bhaskar Mittra during her fieldwork in Odisha, India. (Photo provided)