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Abstract
The study assesses the resource use efficiency of smallholder paddy farmers with/without considering undesirable outputs through the mobile-based application. Further, the study performs an impact assessment of digital recommendations on farmers' paddy yield improvement. A mobile app-based questionnaire was used to collect data from 153 paddy farmers in eastern India. The study employed Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to identify the farmers' resource use efficiency with/without undesirable output. We found lower farm eco-efficiency scores with undesirable output in the model compared to the case of not considering the undesirable output analysis. Results also showed that farmers are over-utilizing fertilizers, farming machinery, and labor in farming, which needs to be reduced to the recommended optimal level. Finally, using the Propensity Score Matching (PSM), we observed that the farmers achieved better paddy yield, i.e., an additional 0.6t/ha paddy, due to the adaptation of mobile-based recommendations. Subsequently, we used probit modeling to estimate the critical factors for adopting mobile-based services. Results show that farmers’ education level, farm experience, social capital, and market information play a significant role in mobile-app-based recommendation adoption. This study supports that farmers need to be suggested to use digital advisory services, and state/central policies may be aligned towards strengthening farmers' capacities for applying digital services in the farming system.