Bundling Weather Indexed-Insurance, SMS Extension Service, and Weather Information: Evidence from a Randomized Trial in Mali

This paper presents evidence from a randomized controlled trial evaluating two digital agricultural interventions among smallholder maize farmers in southern Mali. The first intervention consists of a standalone mobile-delivered weather index-insurance product, while the second intervention provides a movile-delivered bundled package combining weather index-insurance with localized weather forecasts and agricultural advisory services delivered via SMS. Using data from approximately 1,400 farming households across diverse agro-climatic zones in Mali, we find that both interventions, weather index-insurance alone and the bundled product, improve agricultural outcomes, with substantially stronger effects observed for the bundled product relative to the control group. These larger effects are primarily driven by changes in agricultural input use and production practices induced by the tailored agronomic advice and weather information. Together, these complementary services enable farmers to make more informed production decisions, better manage climate-related risks, adopt more productive farming strategies, and ultimately improve agricultural productivity and household welfare. A cost-benefit analysis further indicates that the bundled intervention is highly cost-effective. The findings highlight the potential of combining financial instruments with digital information services to strengthen agricultural productivity and resilience in low-income settings, while also pointing to promising avenues for future bundled agricultural service models.