Abstract
AbstractThis paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on the potential benefits of the Internet on rural livelihoods. We estimate the relationship between Internet access and agricultural production in rural Viet Nam using a panel dataset from 2008–2012. This is a time span during which Internet access increased substantially and government‐run and private online outlets providing information about agriculture started to operate. Our findings suggest that Internet access is associated with a 6.8% higher volume of total agricultural output. We find that this result is manifested through more efficient use of fertilizer. Our findings are stronger for younger households. The less developed northern provinces have benefited the most from the arrival of the Internet. The results are weaker in the case of rice, which is related to strong government involvement in rice production and prices.
Highlights
Information and communication technology (ICT) is spreading rapidly and is becoming available and affordable to an increasing share of the world’s population
Our work presents new microeconomic evidence of the benefits of Internet access on agricultural production in Viet Nam using a large-scale panel dataset on rural households, the Viet Nam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) covering the period from 2008 to 2012
The results suggest that Internet access is strongly related to the volume of agricultural production
Summary
Information and communication technology (ICT) is spreading rapidly and is becoming available and affordable to an increasing share of the world’s population. Our results provide evidence of how the rural population in Viet Nam has been able to benefit from the ICT revolution. In parallel to the vast expansion of ICT, a number of online platforms providing information about agriculture have emerged. AgroInfo provides farmers with news related to agriculture, information about production, and information about regional prices of various inputs and crops. In addition to AgroInfo, the website of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (http://www.mard.gov.vn) contains information about crop prices and news related to agriculture. We are aware of three privately run websites that provide information on agriculture in Vietnamese, which were operating during the period of our study. The list of all known online platforms is given in Online Appendix B
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