REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) requests proposals from qualified survey agencies in India to undertake a baseline survey for a study in Bihar, India around effective extension approaches to encourage farmers to apply timely and adequate number of irrigations to wheat. The services provided by the survey agency shall include, but are not limited to data collection, data monitoring, preliminary data cleaning. The contract term will be from December 23^rd, 2024, to March 24^th, 2025.

Background

This work is commissioned as a part of the study on effective extension approaches for reaching out to farmers in Bihar to apply timely and ideal number of waterings required for wheat. The surveying agency (the “Collaborator”) will collaborate with IFPRI (the “Investigators”) to implement this study from December 23^rd, 2024, to March 24^th, 2025.

Activities

As part of the study, the collaborator will be responsible for the following major activities:

1. Conduct household listing surveys in 90 villages across 15 districts of Bihar (2 blocks in each district), representing all agro-climatic zones:

• The listing exercise is aimed at identifying rice and wheat growers, along with capturing basic information on the time of sowing, irrigation sources and the number of irrigations applied for wheat.
• Conduct the baseline survey with 3000 households in Bihar:

· Data will be collected from both women and men farmers in the sampled households.

· Data collection will focus on agronomic and irrigation practices used for rice and wheat crops; role of women across various stages of rice and wheat cultivation along with relevant modules to assess women’s empowerment; and a choice experiment to understand farmers’ willingness to pay/accept new inputs or change in practices.

· Permission from farmers to revisit them in the 2025 Kharif and 2025-26 Rabi seasons.

1. Sampling and allocation of villages/respondents will be finalized by IFPRI.
2. A total of around 180 villages (90 villages from an existing sample and additional 90 villages covered in the household listing survey) across 15 districts will be covered in the study.
3. The survey instruments will be designed and finalized by IFPRI.
4. Interview time for each respondent will be 120 to 150 minutes.
5. Tablets will be used for data collection. The Collaborator would be responsible for the CAPI programming, to be finalized in consultation with IFPRI.
6. Households will be provided with compensation of INR 250 (equivalent to one day wage rate under MGNREGA) by the Collaborator for participating in the survey.
7. All travel, food and accommodation costs during the data collection for the household listing survey and baseline survey, as well as training of enumerators and field pilot costs will be borne by the Collaborator.

10. Conditional on other factors, the target blocks/villages may be changed. The Collaborator shall be informed of the change by IFPRI well advance in time.

To this end, the Collaborator will

1. Lead the selection and mobilization of enumerators and supervisors.
2. Along with support from IFPRI, provide training to the enumerators on the survey, methodology and the usage of Android tablets for data collection.
3. Organize logistics of field data collection, including the timing, travel and accommodation of the enumerators.
4. Supervise field data collection and ensure that data are collected efficiently, accurately and in a timely manner.
5. Ensure that data is periodically uploaded to the data server and accessible to the Project Coordinator (IFPRI).
6. Communicate schedules of the enumerators and the supervisors to the Project Coordinator from IFPRI.
7. Ensure that the data collected is regularly reviewed and checked for accuracy, completeness, and quality.
8. Conduct the primary level cleaning of data to facilitate its use in a better way.
9. Ensure that surveys are conducted in all the villages and any other support needed for successful implementation of study is provided.
10. Ensure that the content of the interviews remain private and secure; all information should be handled with the highest level of confidentiality and professionalism.

Timeline

Deliverables

1.By January 6, 2025, submit CAPI program and in-house survey training report for the household listing survey with Project Manager approval.

2. By February 5, 2025, submit cleaned data from the household listing survey, finalize CAPI program, field implementation manual, enumerator training and pilot survey report for the baseline survey with Project Manager approval.

3. By March 20, 2025, final cleaned dataset submitted to IFPRI and report on data collection completed with 3000 households, data cleaning and revisions, feedback from staff and other details to be mutually agreed-upon between IFPRI and the Collaborator.

4. By March 24, 2025, submit an “End-of-Project Summary Report” and a certified final financial report for total contract funds spent with Project Manager approval.

Interested applicants are requested to submit a detailed budget quotation for undertaking the work mentioned in this RfP.