Signals from Space, Decisions on Farms: Digital Leapfrogging for Agricultural Productivity, Climate Resilience & Sustainability

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ABSTRACT

Why do some users leap to complex tools for information while others stall? We study staged digital leapfrogging in the agriculture context of India, where farmers first register for WhatsApp advisories and later enroll in a satellite-driven AI platform. This staged technological adoption is the empirical footprint of digital leapfrogging: users move from near-zero formal digital support to an AI-enabled platform without needing intermediate technologies. Using satellite data of vegetation productivity indices for 904 farms, we estimate event-time and kink regression designs within ±101 days of the two-staged digital adoption. Adoption raises greenness, with slope gains concentrated at AI enrollment; effects strengthen under uncertain conditions of weather extremity. Medium and large farms realize stable improvements, while small farms show short-run adjustment and recovery. Results show how channel design shapes AI technology adoption, quantify near-term sustainability benefits, and inform sequencing for climate-resilient agricultural innovation during unprecedented times in emerging markets.

BIOGRAPHY

Soniya Gupta-Rawal (she/her) is a PhD Scholar in Quantitative Marketing at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. Her research is at the intersection of business innovation, marketing strategy in emerging markets, and social impact of entrepreneurship, using field experiments and econometric modeling. Her doctoral research focuses on quantifying marketing problems for small-scale entrepreneurs and unorganized businesses in emerging markets, for underexplored yet high- impact domains like digital adoption, women entrepreneurship, unorganized retail, and frugal innovation. She studies problems that contribute multi-stakeholder value to governments, policy teams, social enterprises, micro-entrepreneurs, and low-income consumers. Soniya holds an MPhil in Strategy, Marketing, and Operations from University of Cambridge (Commonwealth Scholar, 2021). She has published in the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Psychology and Marketing, and Journal of Asia-Pacific Business. Her research work has been recognized by the Tony Cowling Foundation Research Award (2022–25).