Farmer to Farmer – Integra LLC

Agriculture, Extension Service, Farmer to Farmer, Food Security, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Reflections on mAg. Services: Content Sourcing, Quality Assurance & Dissemination

Photo Credit: IITA

NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question five from the forum. This post is the fifth in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed.

With my interest in this area, I began the discussion with a post which pointed out the need to source content from farmers themselves – that is farmers’ local knowledge and innovations (FLK/I). A number of subsequent posts agreed with the fact that local knowledge is critical, and any effort to spread this knowledge and prevent its dearth by recording it through technology is also essential.

Question 5: What are the methods for sourcing appropriate content to be delivered to farmers, what standards should be followed when disseminating information to farmers, and who is best placed to manage quality assurance?

Most often when it comes to services for farmers, we immediately jump into ways of providing technical/scientific content. So I may say my post did change the tone of discussion of the question, at least at the beginning. Below are some of the ways that FLK/I could be sourced from farmers as primary content and then improved through other scientific methods for use by these farmers.

Sourcing Methods of Farmers Local Knowledge and Innovations (FLKI)

Use of face-to-face meeting with farmers to help identify FLK/I and then “validate” it together with them
Use of mobile vans with the necessary recording equipments to source content from farmers
Use of radio in combination with mobile phones to source FLK/I from farmers. Specifically, radio “Phone-In” program in most parts of Africa could be an excellent method
Farmers could be trained with basic documenting tools so that while they are engaged in their local farming activities, they can also be recording these activities for researchers to use later in their research to improve these innovations.

Other examples of the use of ICTs to facilitate peer-to-peer knowledge sharing among farmers and possibly for sourcing content for farmers were also pointed out by other discussants as Awaaz.De, Digital Green, and Video Viewing Club (VVC).

Another promising application that was mentioned later during the discussion is NEXT2 – a geosocial network app that automatically connects subscribers around location and by common topics of interest or concern. I believe the potential of this app is great for those interested in utilizing farmers local knowledge and innovations. While the app may primarily help strengthen the existing social capital among farmers through knowledge sharing, it could also be used to strengthen the link between farmers and their officers with close geographic proximity.

Customized/Localized Content for Farmers

A related point made by another contributor emphasized localized content instead of global scientific knowledge, which may not be appropriate for all contexts. The post asked for a process to build a database of customized content that is relevant to a group of farmers instead of defining apriori what is needed. The contributor called for a system where farmers can both receive support when they need it, and provide supports to others when it is in their area of expertise. Also with the use of technology such as efficient search interface, ‘farmers’ will be able to take advantage of previously answered questions when it becomes necessary.

In fact this point agrees with one of the components of the mFarmer Initiative that aims at providing bespoke, digital agriculture content via an online database. Making this database a dynamic resource with up-to-date content will be very useful for agricultural development.

Conventional Approaches to Content Sourcing

While others agreed that knowledge from farmers is important to remember, they believe that the bulk of content farmers need to improve their farming techniques is from known sources such as public and private extension services, R&D units (both private and public), and universities. The problem with the content from these sources is that they are in diverse formats that needed to be managed for farmers to be able to use. Below is a summary of traditional methods of sourcing content for farmers:

Printed literature and website information that are authentic and are available in public domain
For information not available in the public domain, special tie-up with appropriate organizations to enable content enrichment and broadening of the knowledge base
Feedback and success stories from the customers

Feedback on Content Versus User-Generated Content

Another important contribution from the experts pointed out the difference between feedback from farmers and content being generated by farmers. Feedback is useful to increase the relevance of the service, content itself, content sourcing methods and understanding of the on-the-ground needs by the research units. On the user-generated content, it may be appropriate for a service provider to take this approach, but it should be noted that the quality of the advice given by one user to another, inevitably affects the perceived quality of the service itself.

Who is Best Placed for Quality Assurance?

Intermediaries? The first concern of how quality assurance should be structured for user-generated model so that it increases the value and doesn’t become a bottle-neck for the scaling up was raised. Even though there was no direct response to this concern, the structured architecture of M-Kilimo and IKSL platforms where their systems have frontline staff, supported by subject matter experts/specialist and again independent evaluators were cited as good examples for content validation.

But at the same time, a concern was raised with the competency of these intermediaries such as knowledge workers, call center operators, and helpline that are critical part of the value chain. Most often, they have access to a vast repository of content and in majority of cases, take the final decision on what content to push to the farmer. Experts are usually one step removed from this process.

This has been my argument after my 2009 study in Ghana where I stated that the mere emergence of intermediaries cannot solve the knowledge barrier challenges that we currently have. We need strategies that ensure that their activities are coordinated (See my four component-strategy to do this).

Research Institutes? It was also pointed out that sourcing, aggregating, managing and assuring quality content for mobile agricultural services is complex. The role of national agricultural research institutes and universities is vital in this process to validate and adapt the content to the local context of the users.

International Organizations? The case of TECA’s partnership with organizations such as the Grameen foundation to use TECA’s information for their farmer helplines and community workers was also shared. It noted that a lot of highly relevant knowledge about successful agricultural practices and technologies for small producers comes from projects but when the project ends, the lessons learnt are often not documented in a way that could be useful for extensionists, local NGOs and farmer cooperatives in the project area and beyond.

Below is quick breakdown from a discussant on quality assurance of content for farmers:

In-house content personnel for developing content plan and protocol
Experts who will be vetting the content for messages
In-house content personnel for carrying out regular internal audit
Obtaining feedback from farmers through participatory appraisal to improve the services
Periodic audits conducted by external agencies

Standards to Follow while Disseminating Information to Farmers

Protocol of information dissemination is required to be developed for each category of information.
Requirement in respect of the following should be well defined in these protocols of information dissemination such as source, adequacy, accuracy, relevance (location specific), clarity, and sensitivity to the socio-cultural aspects

In summary, as we explore mobile agricultural information services, it is expedient for us to combine these services with human actions. There may be situations where experts will need to visit farmers field to be able to do the right diagnosis to the problem. Those from the field will agree that not all problems can be solved through phone calls or SMS. Sometimes, the experts need to see the infestation, disease, etc. on the ground to be able to recommend a solution. We need the mobile services but at the same time we should be able to determine when to use it, especially when we are concern with quality of content to the users.

NB: The last in the series (6th) is “Reflections on mAg Services: Mistakes and Pitfalls of MNOs/NGOs” (Available on 01/05/2012)

The first, second, third and fourth posts are:

1. “Reflections on mAg. Services: Partnerships Between MNOs and APs”

2. “Reflections on mAg. Services: Barriers to Scale“

3. “Reflections on mAg Services: Is there a Business Case for Serving Farmers?“

4. “Reflections on mAg Services: Financial Sustainability”

January 3, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Extension Service, Farmer to Farmer, Food Security, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Reflections on mAg. Services: Partnerships Between MNOs and APs

Photo Credit: GSMA

NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question one from the forum. This post is the first in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed.

Partnership, being one of the key criteria for selecting mFarmer Fund beneficiaries, the introductory question (below) for the forum was about partnership.

Question 1: In a partnership between a mobile network operator and agricultural partners, what unique value proposition does each partner bring, how can they leverage of each others’ strengths and what roles should each play in delivering a service to farmers?

Quick Summary of Contributions to the Question

With regard to the unique value propositions that each partner brings to the partnership, most of the contributions centered around the fact that Mobile Network Operators (MNOs):

Are providers of the mobile technology platform for the delivery of agricultural services
Have crucial role in ensuring access to the telecom network (adequate)
Have the responsibility for developing products that are affordable for farmers
Are responsible for addressing coverage issues
Need to ensure that they provide credible and dependable service
Have the responsibility of charging users and share the generated income with external Value Added Service providers
Are to be in charge of marketing and communicating the services to users (branding).

On the other hand, the Agricultural Partners (APs):

May be considered as content providers
Be able to clearly identify who the target farmers are and what their real information needs are
Must have rich experience of quality content for the farmers
Must have clear distinct experience and expertise in the areas of understanding farmers need
Shall have the ability to solve farmers’ problems and ultimately help them with inputs and services to implement the solutions
Must have the skills of connecting with farming communities
Be able to understand which format is best suited for the collection and delivery of information
Be able to collect, analyze, refine and disseminate (or make available) relevant agricultural information to the target audience
Be able to market available information services in the field, including through networks of extension workers
Shall ensure that the MNO fully understands that there is a real business behind Value Added Service (VAS) targeting farmers, even if the information service may take a longer time to take off
Be responsible for formatting of the content, reformatting, sometimes translating to be delivered and understood by the end user
Be responsible for quality assurance of the content – including sources, processes and final advice delivered
Are most likely in the best position to make sure that the mobile “channel” is used well to augment other info delivery channels.

Part B & C: How can the partners leverage of each others’ strengths and what roles should each play in delivering a service to farmers?

Contributions from the forum emphasized the importance of utilizing the existing infrastructure and assets including the mobile channels such as call center, SMS and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) infrastructure, short-code, and billing and revenue collection facilities. The partners can also utilize their respective brand strength and marketing expertise. For example MNOs have some of the strongest brands and trust with the users which can be powerful agents for marketing and driving awareness and the APs can also through their Agriculture VAS, help the brand and increase the market share of the mobile operator. Also pointed out was the possibility of MNOs to provide Agri VAS access via basic Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) menu service which could drastically decrease the barriers for the rural users to access the service and increase the usability. Potentially MNOs have the capacity to blend Agri VAS with mobile money solution and compliment advisory with agricultural financial services, such as loans and crop insurance.

Reflections on the Discussion

My take on this first question is that the understanding of the “AP” and “MNO” has not been made clear at the start of the discussion leading to all kinds of interpretations, assumptions and labeling. A first look at the question makes it simple and obvious but a critical analysis reveals how complex it is especially with the key terms – MNOs and APs.

In my first post at the forum, I did call for the definitions of these terms that seem obvious to the e-agriculture community. Fro example with the APs, are we talking of any group or organization involve in agricultural development services such as NGOs with agricultural service provision; community-based organizations involved in agriculture; farmer-based organizations; national agricultural units such as extension services, or research institutes?

A key argument that ran through the discussion and confirmed my argument was the call for a third party organization for the partnership. The issue of third party partners such as software developers, technology developers, new start-ups, research institutes, international organizations, etc. partnering with MNOs and APs to ensure the success of good mobile services for users came up. The case of IKSL was mentioned where other agencies and institutions which generate actual content – like Agricultural Universities and Research Institutes, International agencies like CABI, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Agmarknet for market information were involved in the partnership as third parties.

So a successful partnership for the mFarmer Fund may need more than MNO/AP partnership by reaching out to other institutions and organizations that have expertise in the Initiative’s Core Service. Alternatively, the APs and MNOs may be able to subcontract some of these services, but the positions of these different expertise need to be recognized.

The four points below could summarize the components of the partnership, whether two, three or more partners are involved:

Demand Articulations – partners that have skills and expertise of understanding the users (needs and potentials), understanding the content dynamics for users, etc. (e.g. NGO, CBO)
Network Formations – partners who are able to help connect other partners together and also connect users to product developers, ensure boundary spanning and information filtering (e.g. social media firms)
Process Management – partners that have the capacity to ensure infrastructure development, management and maintenance, generation of revenue for sustainability, quality assurance, formatting, etc. (e.g. MNOs, Software companies, IT firms, Universities, etc.)
Supply Activation – partners that have the skills to train and educate users on the products and services, who understand the language of the developers, able to communicate VAS, (e.g. extension services, NGOs, research institutes, etc.)

These are quotes from some of the experts at the forum:

“The Agricultural partner might not have an immediate capacity to do this in-house, as Agricultural Partner is usually an NGO or Ag. institution and not a VAS provider it its traditional sense.”

“For this, independent agronomists/ SMEs might be recruited if for example the agricultural partner has extensive experience on the ground but not so much access to the latest deep research around each individual crop/ animal.”

In otherwise, it has been acknowledged that partnership is necessary between AP (s) and MNO (s) but other views are that, the role of the MNOs, should be seen as roles being played by Internet Service Provider (ISP). That is providing the platform or network that could enable start-ups and VAS providers to utilize their services and innovations. VAS provision should remain independent of the MNOs.

Other Important Points and Questions Raised on this First Question!

The mobile channel is great for delivering certain types of information, but not all.
The profitability and success of the partnership is key
How would a model work that included two or more MNOs as the service delivery partners?
Sources of funding for the partnership – governments or on business models for profitability?
Would an MNO go into massive infrastructure investment just because of a partnership with AP for delivering agricultural services?
Where are the farmers in the partnership?

NB: The next in series is “Reflections on Mobile Ag. Services: Barriers to Scale“ and available on 12/26/2011.

December 22, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Extension Service, Farmer to Farmer, Food Security, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Sustainable Agriculture

Reflections on Mobile Agriculture Services: Blog Series

Photo Credit: e-Agriculture

The mFarmer Initiative, a partnership between GSMA, USAID and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in collaboration with e-Agriculture, initiated an online discussion late November to early December 2011.

The 2-week forum which was organized around six main questions, touched on critical issues from partnerships, barriers to scale, business cases/models, content, and mistakes committed by service providers in delivering these services.

As one of the participants in this forum, I have decided to reflect on the discussion which falls within my professional interest of using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve the living conditions of rural people in the developing nations, most of which are farmers by enhancing their access to resources.

There are six reflections in the series that are available through this portal for readers. Below is the list of titles, links, and dates of the posts:

1: Reflections on mAg Services: Partnerships Between MNOs and APs (Available on 12/22/2011)

2: Reflections on mAg. Services: Barriers to Scale (Available on 12/26/2011)

3: Reflections on mAg Services: Is there a Business Case for Serving Farmers? (Available on 12/29/2011)

4: Reflections on mAg Services: Financial Sustainability (Available on 12/31/2011)

5: Reflections on mAg Services: Content Sourcing, Quality Assurance & Dissemination (Available on 01/03/2012)

6: Reflections on mAg Services: Mistakes and Pitfalls of MNOs/NGOs (Available on 01/05/2012)

NB: These posts are summaries of the discussion and my personal reflections on some of the key points, and do not reflect the views of any of the sponsors, experts or contributors to the forum.

I hope we can continue the discussion.

December 22, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Farmer to Farmer, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

FIVE Most Fascinating Ag Apps of 2011!

A wide range of ICT tools were developed and deployed along the agriculture value chain this year. Having reviewed a number of them, here is a list of what I consider the five most fascinating ag apps of 2011.

Note: This is entirely subjective and excludes those that predates 2011 but were either rebranded, boosted by research or additional usage this year. The order is intended.

iPhone screen shot of the iCow app

1. iCow
I gave this app props long before Forbes Magazine dubbed it “The best African Mobile App”. This Green Dreams Ltd creation topped the Apps4Africa Contest, but unlike many other prize-winning apps, the iCow became a worldwide sensation. The voice-based mobile information app for diary farmers is leaps and bounds above most others because of its earthy nature and its catchy name—branding is certainly one of its strongest cards. It will be delightful to know the uptake since it was first piloted.

2. RITS Apps
This suite of traceability and efficiency tools, developed by Exprima Media and Sustainable Harvest, is fascinating on many levels. It uses the most rugged platform, the iPad, to get the big benefits of computing (automation, info sharing) in the hands of farmers. The simplicity of the user interface also enhance usability by those with limited computer literacy, thereby reducing the need for heavy investment of scare resources (money and time) in training. 2012 should be a great year for this suite of apps, as it moves out of the piloting phase and we are able to take stock of the findings. At the very least, it is the most anthropologically astute ag app on the market today.

3. mFisheries
This innovative suite of mobile apps was developed by Dr. Kim Mallalieu and a team at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad. It is fascinating for two primary reasons: 1) It tackles challenges in the fisheries sector, which is often neglected by developers, by providing access to fish and fish processing best practices, connecting suppliers and consumers. 2) Despite the challenges in building a vibrant developer community and culture in the tiny region, this app confronts the particular needs of the Caribbean fishing industry in a truly innovative way—utilizing location-positioning functions in mobiles for search and rescue purposes. That will certainly come in handy in the hurricane season when many fisher folks experience difficulties at sea.

4. Africa Commodities and Futures Exchange (ACFEX)
Though still in the implementation phase, ACFEX makes the list of the five most fascinating ICT tools for agriculture in 2011 because it is the first truly pan-Africa commodities FX—though I have seen several others, none is quite like this. It tackles the multicurrency and cross-border constraints using some of the most advanced technologies available, while keeping the small farmer at its core. Eight countries have signed on so far, 2012 should test the mettle of this private sector initiative as more states come on board.

5. CellBazaar

Credit: CellBazaar

This glitzy app, developed by an international nonprofit think-tank called Think, tackles a familiar problem—marketing. So it isn’t innovative in that sense. However, it is fascinating because of the branding and the rapid uptake. Few apps, though they are rapidly churned out, in the ag space have been properly branded and marketed—even the essentials of life must be touted for people to rapidly adhere to, use and preserve them! Even the name of CellBazaar tells you precisely what it is. The tagline tops it off with “the market in your mobile phone.” Evidence of the effectiveness of touting it as a virtual marketplace for GrameenPhone’s 20 million mobile subscribers is evident from the one million up-take noted soon after its launch—and a quarter of those subscribers still regularly use it. 2012 should bring more success for this app as it expands beyond Bangladesh and into parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.

December 20, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Extension Service, Farmer to Farmer, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

App for Ag. User-Generated Content Sharing?

Photo Credit: Next2.us

Next2 is a “geosocial” network that allows people to automatically connect around location and by common topics of interest or concern. By sending a text message, a Next2 subscriber can signal what they have, want or would like to learn or talk about and Next2 automatically matches and then exchanges text messages between users based on similar location and overlap of sharing “circle” without revealing a user’s mobile phone number.

I believe the Ag. Sector is interested in seeing new ICT solutions (apps) that reduce or remove some of the existing bottlenecks in the process of sharing agricultural content between and among rural farmers, extension service providers, and researchers in the developing world.

So what is unique about the Next2 app? One prospect I noticed about the Next2 solution is its professed capability of connecting people with common interest. In the context of rural agriculture, I foresee the improvement in sharing of local knowledge and innovations among farmers – a kind of horizontal/intra communication among the farmers. Next2 app may contribute to the production and sharing of user-generated agricultural content among farmers. It could also increase the density of communication network between farmers and other stakeholders.

Next2 also professes to take simple feature phones without data connection and through use of SMS puts those phones on the Internet. I wonder if this could be an alternative solution to the use of smartphones in share agricultural data between and among farmers, extension service providers and researchers. By going to a Next2 subscribers web page and clicking on a link you can send the subscriber a message, the message appears on the subscribers mobile phone as a new text message, the subscriber can reply by text message, and the Next2 software routes it back to the sender as SMS or email. Of course, access to the minimum Internet service will be required.

The aims of the Next2 solution are:

Making the lives of people at the base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) significantly better by enabling them to discover, connect, communicate and thereby mobilize local solutions to local problems,
Giving under-served and over-looked populations an Internet presence and messaging identity that creates a bridge between them and Internet users,
Empowering local channel marketing partners to introduce Next2 to the communities they serve to quickly and aggressively drive content creation, content distribution and grow significant value to end-users,
Building SMS, access phone number(s) across the African continent so subscribers can conduct cross border communication and trade to foster regional markets and economic development in agricultural and other industries,
Enabling brands, entrepreneurs, businesses, NGOs, government agencies and researchers to reach Next2 users and/or incorporate Next2′s communication platform, features and/or data in their own applications.

The use of the innovation is being considered in Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana for agricultural partners who can create a Nokia App for farmers. The solutions is similar to how FrontlineSMS works but instead of plugging a SIM card into a personal computer, SIM card is rather plugged into a in-country hosting provider that then connects the SIM card to the cloud solution of Next2 on Amazon server. Through that, Next2 is able to use a long-code to provide Next2 solution to all farmers in a given country.

Will be monitoring and looking forward to more analysis on the use of the app from the field as it is piloted.

More information here.

December 5, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Climate Change, Extension Service, Farmer to Farmer, Food Security, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Farmer Innovations – The Case of Tanzanian Farmers & Smartphones

Photo Credit: Sauti ya wakulima

Through a collaborative knowledge base, farmers from the Chambezi region of the Bagamoyo District in Tanzania are using smartphones equipped with GPS modules and an application that makes it easy to send pictures and sounds to the Internet. The smartphones are used to document their daily practices, make reports about their observations regarding changes in climate and related issues, and also to interview other farmers, expanding thus their network of social relationships and engaging in a process of mutual learning.

This is just one of the stories of local people innovating through the challenges they face on the field. Over the years, local people are known to innovate due to necessity, changing conditions, and curiosity, doing informal experiments on new ideas either from their own ingenuity or learned from other farmers, researchers, extensionists and other information sources like the mass media. But over and over again, scientists have learnt very little about these innovations in order to take advantage of them to improve their scientific research work.

The farmers at Chambezi not only struggle because of insufficient infrastructure and unreliable markets for their products, but they are also facing the challenges of a changing local climate. Less rains, less underground water and unprecedented threats caused by pests and plant diseases are some of the pressing issues that they have to deal with. However, they know that by sharing their knowledge on how to cope with these problems, they can become stronger and find ways to overcome them. They hope that, by communicating their observations to extension officers and scientific researchers, who can be in remote locations, they can participate in the design of new strategies for adaptation.

In order for their voices to be heard, the farmers gather audiovisual evidence of their practices using smartphones and publish images and voice recordings on the Internet. The project, which started early this year, is currently being sponsored by the North South Center of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, with the support of the Department of Botany of the University of Dar es Salaam and the Zurich Node of the Planetary Collegium (Z-Node). The participants of Sauti ya wakulima, a group of five men and five women, who gather every Monday at the agricultural station in Chambezi, use a laptop computer and a 3G Internet connection to view the images and hear the voice recordings that they posted during the week. They also pass the two available smartphones on to other participants, turning the phones into shared tools for communication.

For more information about this innovation, visit the Sauti ya wakulima blog and site.

November 8, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Farmer to Farmer, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Joining ICT4D to learn about using technology for agricultural development

Judy Payne, Shaun Ferris, and Grahame Dixie at the ICT4D meetup. Photo credit: KDMD.

On August 22, the ICT for Development (ICT4D) Learning Network hosted an expert panel on how ICTs, or information and communication technologies, are enabling agriculture and improving livelihoods worldwide. The event, held at the USAID Public Information Library, was co-organized by Appropriate IT and the USAID-funded FACET Project, which is being implemented by FHI 360. FACET works to enhance agricultural value chains and facilitate trade in agricultural products across Sub-Saharan Africa by providing technical assistance on the use of ICT tools to improve competitiveness and productivity.

The first presenter on the panel was Grahame Dixie, the Agribusiness Unit Team Leader for the World Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development department. Dixie’s presentation covered a lot of the new research by IFPRI and others about how farmers and people in agriculture value chains are using ICT and what the effects are. Focusing mainly on telephones (both public land lines and private cell phones), he explained that there is good evidence that phones are raising rural income (Peru), improving commercial farmer income (Philippines), and leading to changes in cropping mixes and marketing methods (Morocco). That said, according to Dixie, the most important function that phones seem to serve is to connect players in the value chain in a way that promotes trust between them, leading to sharing of critical market intelligence.

In Grahame Dixie’s experience, a critical area where technology can play a big role is logistics. To illustrate this point, he told this story about women backyard poultry producers in Bangladesh:

“[The women] found out that the prices that they received for their chickens was less than half that of the prices in the nearest major market. They decided to contact the visiting trader and demand an explanation for paying so badly. The trader explained that he had to cover all his costs of getting to and back from their village over the few chickens they could sell him, and he could not afford to pay them more. How many chickens would he need to buy to be able to pay sensible prices? Fifty, he replied. They found that he has a cell phone and now actively seek out sufficient chickens to sell from an extended group, and call him in when they have aggregated a sensible critical mass. The prices have increased–and this in turn has incentivized the production of more chickens.”

After talking with farmers, researchers have found that the most useful market intelligence appears to be the simplest—contact information, especially of buyers, input suppliers, and transporters. They also found that the crops for which ICT integration generates the most farmer benefits are high-value, semi-perishables. Another finding was that the person in the value chain who seems to benefit most is the trucker/trader with a cell phone. Dixie wondered if there may be a way to squeeze that additional profit now accruing to the trader to either end of the value chain to push more benefits to the farmers and/or end buyers.

As his presentation focused so heavily on cell phones and SMS technology, Dixie concluded with a brief look at costs. According to him, the prices of SMS messages in many countries are high and bordering on “iniquitous,” especially when compared to the cost of actually transmitting the message. The current cost/price structures, he said, might mean a role for regulators or possibly an open source software for broadcasting SMS.

September 13, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Environment, Extension Service, Farmer to Farmer, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Sustainable Agriculture

Tackling Poor Access to Farm Extension Services with ICTs

Poor access to farm extension services is still a major impediment to agricultural productivity and the improvement of rural livelihoods. But, increasingly, ICTs are playing a central role in enabling and facilitating the provision of demand-driven extension services. This marks a shift from highly inefficient public sector extension delivery models, under which farmers and rural communities had little/no opportunity to articulate their own needs.

Despite the ICT-enabled shift towards more democratic/pluralistic, demand driven and efficient extension services in some places, there is still a far way to go before game changing impacts are made.

A silver laptop with a blank screen and black buttons on bright green grass

CTA/ARDYIS Facebook Photo

Although the use of conventional technologies such as radio and television, and even new ICTs, is commendable, many “model projects” reach too few people and are unsustainable.

But the emergence of multiple players in the evolving extension services landscape—NGOs/CBOs, private sector actors, and farmers as extension service users and sharpers, among others—presents broad opportunities. The main opportunity I foresee is that of a firmer platform for articulating the need for better telecommunications policies, which will benefit extension services and the broader range of development objectives that hinge on access to ICTs.

Consequently, agricultural planners and policy-makers ought not to be particularly concerned with specifically enabling the integration of ICTs into pro-poor extension service delivery. While that is a desirable objective, it ignores the broader picture—poverty reduction.

Strategic agricultural planning recognize that ICT-based solutions for agricultural problems are not all sector specific. In much the same way that the major agricultural challenges operate on a macro-level, by cutting-across sectors, the solutions must stem from holistic observations and responses.

Indeed, any ICT intervention that improves the livelihoods of the rural poor is likely to have positive (direct and indirect) impacts on agricultural value chain management—planning, productivity, and marketing. This is true to the extent that rural economies are largely agrarian. So, any challenge to improving the general livelihood of the rural poor will adversely affect agricultural productivity— be that challenge inadequate health services, poor resource management, natural disasters, anthropogenic shocks, minimal access to education, financial services and poor infrastructure, etc.

So, strengthening extension services will require tackling more systemic problems… seeing the forest and not just the trees.

June 13, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Extension Service, Farmer to Farmer, Food Security, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The mFarmer Initiative: 2 Million Small Farmers to Benefit by 2013

The GSMA, a global body that represents the interests of over 1000 mobile operators and suppliers, launched the mFarmer Initiative Fund today, in Cape Town South Africa. The Fund, which will run until 2013, is backed by financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

If successfully implemented, the mFarmer Fund will enable the provision of more efficient farm extension services to 2 million of the world’s poorest farmers. The Fund will target “mobile communications service providers, in partnership with other public and private sector agricultural organizations, to provide information and advisory services to smallholder farmers in developing countries living under US$2 per day”.

The initiative will target 12 countries: India, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. However, the technologies developed and lessons learned will be shared globally. The mobile sector advocate said the initiative will function through competitive and deadline-driven grants. For more on the criteria for grants from the mFarmer Fund, please click here.

The Fund is part of GSMA’s thrust to fully deploy and integrate mobile technology into agricultural management, to boost productivity and ensure food security, under its flagship Mobile Agriculture (mAgri) Programme.

The GSMA project will further promote demand-driven, use inspired mobile tools for farmers. The rapid rise in mobile phone subscriptions, in even the outskirts of the developing world, presents opportunities to improve the lives of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

June 9, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Farmer to Farmer, Livestock, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Sustainable Agriculture

Kenya, the Land of the Apps churns out the iCow

Kenya is arguable the epicenter of the worldwide mobile application frenzy. The east-African nation churns out a new top-rated, demand driven application nearly every six months. The latest innovation is iCow,

iPhone screen shot of the iCow app

a voice based mobile information application for diary farmers. Green Dreams Ltd, the developer, says iCow will help farmers optimally manage livestock breeding.

The earthy app is rapidly winning over agriculturalists and tech enthusiasts. It won first place in the recently held Apps4Africa competition, a U.S funded project. The iCow has also been lauded by the Social Development Network (SODNET) and Biovision Africa Trust.

The iCow will help farmers efficaciously track a cow’s estrus cycle, manage nutrition and breeding, which will enable them to yield more milk and calves—the two indicators of a cow’s economic value. This demand-drive and culturally appropriate technology complements the ubiquitous cellphone to address key agricultural challenges. Chief among these challenges are: Poor record keeping; outmoded and hard to acquire and comprehend calendars, including the cardboard wheel system; and the gaping information vacuum.

The iCow app address these problems. It will deliver prompt farmers about their cow’s nutrition, illness and diseases, vaccinations, milk hygiene, milking technologies and techniques. This will be done via a series of voice prompts and SMS messages that will be sent to the farmer throughout the cow cycle. Critically, the voice-based nature of this application combats the problem of literacy, a major impediment to ICT4D.

The iCow is Green Dreams’ most recent plugin for the flagship app, Mkulima Farmer Information Service and Helpline (Mkulima FISH), which is being developed.

June 7, 2011/by actualize

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