Signed, sealed, delivered: Digital receipts to improve accountability and milk quality in Uganda's dairy chain
Digital transparency tools can significantly improve accountability and product quality in agricultural supply chains where informal contracts and information gaps are common, especially for farmers relying on intermediaries. This brief details findings from a randomised trial in Uganda’s dairy sector, showing that SMS-based digital receipts led to better milk quality, increased detection of discrepancies, and greater farmer trust and participation – suggesting strong potential for scalable, low-cost interventions.
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Henning-Sáenz-Policy-Brief-September-2025.pdf
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- Simple SMS "digital receipts" sent to farmers increased milk quality: treated farmers delivered less diluted milk.
- The intervention boosted monitoring and accountability in the transporter link of the value chain: treated farmers were 20–26 percentage points more likely to spot discrepancies and 14–17 percentage points more likely to switch away from dishonest transporters.
- For self-delivering farmers, digital receipts increased the likelihood of delivery (by roughly 5–9 percentage points), but average delivered volumes did not change, suggesting constraints on the intensive margin.
- Transparency benefits likely extend to public health, where adulterated water is unsafe, and market integrity, where weak formal enforcement limits contractability.
- Because transporters may adjust behaviour across all clients, and farmers share information, measured effects are a lower bound on true impacts.