Question 1 (opens 25 Nov.) What are the main achievements in the area of ICT for agriculture and rural development...

Hello Rachel,

I agree that right now communities are driving change and it is not isolated. Services such as the Nokia Life Agriculture Service and Reuters Market Lite card are bridging extention education gaps in India. I believe these and similar services should be promoted without being worried too much about illiteracy being an impediment as more mobile usage automatically enhances literacy and helps improve the quality of decisions made for farming. Moreover, as people see their neighbours and other community members become tech-savvy, the social pressure to catch up with the trend mounts. That further encourages them to overcome barriers like low reading skills to adapt to ICTs. 

Experience in India: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2007-01-28/india/27878257_1_mobile-phone-mobile-sets-phone-book and in Senegal: http://www.impatientoptimists.org/Posts/2013/03/Celebrate-Solutions-Improving-Literacy-and-Driving-Change-Through-SMS-Text-Messaging has shown that mobile usage even by illiterate people helps them become literate, albeit slowly. 

Regards,

Natalia

Steph,

Interesting points!  In response:

1. You are absolutely right that all humans have a limit where challenges become obstacles, and initiatives that ask farmers to overcome *obstacles* rather than challenges are often not worth the energy investment for the farmer --> are not successful.

2. When introducing new technology, the question is, why wasn't this community already using this device?  Too expensive?  Not available?  Too big of a knowledge gap?  Whatever it is, it is likely to prevent the scalability that you mention.  Even if you provide devices to a whole community, what will they do when the device breaks down?  Often unsustainable.

3. Absolutely--as I said, we also found that multi-channel communication allowed maximum engagement levels --> success.

On all three counts, the bottom line is meet the users where they are comfortable.

Some excellent dimensions have been called out so far, about (e.g.) the need for integration ('solutions' over 'tools'), better ways of measuring impact ('farmers reached', like 'mobile penetration', doesn't tell us much), and scalability (robust ways of working at scale, versus 'science experiments').

While no approach is a universal solution, Grameen Foundation has been deeply engaged in one scaled-up project that utilises ICT in a user-centred way, i.e. by trying always to start with the end farmer and her/his needs, and engage them in a co-creation of services to address those needs.  Through trial and error we have learned that a participative approach is key; as Steph, Kiringai and others have indicated. In both mobile agriculture and mobile financial services for the rural poor, we start with what we call 'human centered design' principles and methodologies, making findings available once substantiated. 
http://www.nextbillion.net/blogpost.aspx?blogid=3519 

The 'Community Knowledge Worker' ('CKW') approach (a community-nominated trusted intermediary empowered with a smartphone, useful apps, training/management support and a business model that encourages quality interactions with farmers) is maturing as a 'next generation' style of intervention, enabling us to start capturing some valuable learnings. http://www.grameenfoundation.org/what-we-do/agriculture

Again, this is not a 'silver bullet', but it is proving to be a cost-effective way to reach scale (213,000 farmers currently, after 3 years in Uganda) through local participation (over 1,000 CKWs active in their communities). It is also starting to record some interesting impact results (in one independent study, 22% better crop prices, 30% better agronomic practices, and a discernible shift by farmers towards diversifying into new, higher-yield crops).

A number of commentators have rightly called out the paucity of empirical data available in this arena; we hope to publish these and other data to contribute to the joint development of evidence-based guidelines for replication and adaptation.

-- John 

In my earlier life I used to be an IT techie, and after losing a job when I sought to automate revenue management for my country, just because some people did not want transparency, I chose to go into the sector that they would not follow me. I settled on developing a technology for weighing farmer produce, digitally ... which we succeeded in doing. Today it is the hand held digital scale that we developed that has transformed the smallholder farmer engagement with the dairy and tea subsectors in most of Eastern Africa...we are humbled by this reality...but can say that collabroations among many value chain actors, who come from differnt continents, who have been isolated in the development of the technologies assembly and delivery to the clients has made this possible...

The success of this initiative still gets challenged because the platform of centralized data, and hence knowledge, sharing is thoroughly challenged as we do not have the right framework to benefit from the economies of scale in ownership of the ICT infrastructure by the value chain actors who necessarily should include the farmers/producers. While there is so much gain from the m-platforms, there still is so much else that is lacking at the back-end.

There is no doubt that the front end solutions through mobile apps have worked, the challenge that I see and one that from the recent CTA supported Kigali ICT4Ag Conference seemingly keeps searching is a solution which the likes of SAP, like us, are trying to address.

What I am putting across therefore is that, going forward, there is need for responses from this forum which the experience of the participants here can throw some light to. It may or may not include answers to the following:

1. Can smallholder farmers afford to support procurement of SAP style applications?
2. Can a freeware or open software be developed and supported through cloud sourcing to support universal access by mobiles?
3. What is the role of communities in the ownership of an investment infrastructure that can drive more use of m-agri apps?
4. How do we link market dynamics that can ensure value chain actors: producers, service providers who include the youth with their m-apps, and consumers who will link directly with sources of produce rather than relying on middlemen whose value add is derived from information asymmetry or distance.
5. Can logistics networks use more of the m-apps to reduce distances to delivering produce to consumers and what considerations are necessary to achieve such....

Of course I can keep asking questions that will lead to seeking responses from those like John who have been doing something at the grassroots that seems to relate with the value chains and delivering wealth to the producers.

I am still waiting for that Aha moment when I see something that resonates with my many years of searching and I know people out there are doing something that I can add to what I do to make a knowledge based solution to smallholder agriculture and community ICT investments, let me know what you have...

Kiringai

John,

Thanks for sharing this intriguing example.

I am interested in hearing more about what motivates the CKW to work toward community improvement.  Traditional motivators--such as piece-meal pay--are not easily applied in such scenarios, and frequently results in apathy on the part of the selected representative.

Best, 

Megan

Megan,

you hit on a very important issue: pay-for-performance is (probably) necessary, but by itself insufficient. Issues with any simple pay-based approach include (i) creep away from mission to narrow commercial-mindedness or even a form of entitlement; and (ii) possible gaming, where people work out how to play the system at the expense of achieving the end goal. 
  
In the CKW program, the major motivation is more intrinsic -- give already-motivated people the opportunity to earn an additional incentive while performing high-impact work to agreed community standards. 

Sounds high-minded/idealistic, so naturally you'll ask: 

(1) how do you find and recruit those 'already-motivated' people? (how do you know you've done it well?) 
(2) how do you maintain performance to agreed standards, when work is largely being performed out of direct sight in remote areas?  

While not holding out that there is a universal answer, what Grameen Foundation has found works best is the following (all currently deployed for the 1,300 CKWs deployed in Uganda today):

1. Mobilize Social Capital:  Work with the community to first agree to the program and then have them nominate trusted local people to perform the work.
·       hold sensitization sessions up front, about the type of responsibility the role holds, nature of the work, how the incentive plan works, and to surface the needs of women farmers in particular and encourage female participation
·       these have been design principles in the CKW program from the early days, after we'd seen that  more traditional select/recruit/train approach didn't reliably deliver

2. Select on Merit:  from the small number of nominees put forward, perform an objective selection process to determine aptitude (to use smartphone-based apps, in a consultative manner) and availability

3. Engage as Peers: in Uganda, the CKW candidates know that they will receive performance-based incentives but also that they will each purchase a 'business in a box' of a smartphone and solar charging unit complete with panel and additional charging ports for a micro-utility income opportunity.
·       Nothing is given to them; instead, we believe it is essential to underscore the responsibility and the opportunity of the role with this financial commitment by the CKW. Repayments are made from cash incentive payments.

(** long-winded, so I need to break into two replies, sorry **)

4. Train and then Publicly Deploy:  graduates of the training are 'branded' with T-shirts and caps, helping to reinforce their special status. Some embrace this even further, posting signs and hanging shingles (to advertise that 'the doctor is 'in'', so to speak).
·       The idea is to maintain community engagement, not make this solely a ‘private’ contractual arrangement.

5. Pay for Performance:  targets (for conducting valid surveys of neighboring farmers; for disseminating information or conducting group interactions) are explicit and written -- they are sent monthly to each CKW wirelessly, along with links to their specific set of surveys or job tasks. They track their individual performance in real-time on the phone; and then receive payment via mobile money upon attainment of a performance target.
·       Making this rigorous is essential: e.g. all interactions with farmers are geo-tagged and logged; all surveys are quality-checked both logically and with spot-checks in the field. Consistently strong performance enables a CKW to graduate up to a higher tier of work and monetary opportunity.  

6. Maintain the Focus:  while the overall approach has a strong commercial theme, it is subsidiary to the community-sanctioned role and responsibility. We reinforce this in periodic refresher training, CKW local cohort meetings and in farmer community meetings. The strongest performing CKWs appear in farmer-to-farmer videos and are interviewed on Farmer Voice Radio, reinforcing the intrinsic value and status of the role.
·       In Uganda approximately 450 of the CKWs are women, largely serving the more than 75,000 women farmers registered in the program (35% of the total) -- and we have seen that women CKWs consistently tend to be the best performers, in no small part (we believe) a reflection of the new status they have achieved.
·       We have also learned to become more aware of social dynamics; not all husbands have found they were comfortable with their wives' new-found status and ICT prowess -- incentives can work both ways! 
 
Grameen Foundation continues to refine the model, especially as we now plan to deepen the farmer services that the most capable CKWs can perform in their communities and therefore need to manage the natural tension between creating greater income opportunities for the CKW via the ICT platform and maintaining the integrity of the Community foundation of the model.

I hope this gives you a more concrete picture on this key issue of motivation; let me know if you'd like any more info (or can share some insights from your work).

-- John 

Madam,

i am doing PhD research work in the line of mobiel based market information system in india. I  request for more details of the impact study you have conducted, about the  area of the study.

K.C.Siva balan
II PhD Agrl.Ext

It's interesting.... is this question focusing on the intentions and milestones of the commercial or development sector?  Of course there has been massive adoption of mobile phones but that isn't necessarily a win for anyone else but commercial entrepreneurs who identified the tremendous buying potential of emerging markets, especially those with large “youth” populations.  
 
 IF nothing else, I think the great achievement is that we have begun to see rural agriculture communities aka FARMERS as both producers and consumers instead of potential aid recipients.   I believe until a market driven approach is more widely accepted, the production, dissemination (scale) and financial sustainability of better technical content, we should be cautious about what success we report.

Hi BackpackFarmKenya,

I'd agree very much that one marker of real progress is when interventions by development agencies and not-for-profits are able to get out of the way. Think: training wheels!
 
Many commentators argue that there are too many 3-5 year development projects that just don't seem to go anywhere; conversely, one of the notable features of well-designed development programs is that they usually emphasise having an exit strategy that explictly includes self-sustainability.

But I wouldn't make the distinction between 'commercial or development sector' too catgeorically.  Instead I'd suggest we set high, objective performance standards on any approach on a "horses for courses" basis; the starting contexts vary so much for the remote rural poor.  

Where infrastructure, enabling services and commercial actors are able to bring goods and services to remote communities, then farmers can become both producers and consumers as you say.  But in the absence of infrastructure, enabling services and competitive commercial activity, many of those farming households are consigned to being "off-net" -- invisible, un(der)served, often exploited by middlemen trading on those deficiencies, and often with very limited pathways to change.

That is where well-designed development interventions using (e.g.) the power of ICT to overcome distance and enable information collection and dissemination can be powerful.
It can create development activity that actively promotes inclusion of those farmers in commercial supply (buy/sell) chains, on an informed and empowered basis (choices, competitive markets, etc). But design is everything; I think we all still have "training wheels" in regard to design. 

At Grameen Foundation we have repeatedly seen 50+ year old farmers -- people who've had very little opportunity for formal schooling -- embrace well-designed apps presented intuitively and usefully on an Android smartphone, and in no time at all they are bringing new ideas and market opportunities to their neighbouring farmers (e.g. performing surveys and disseminating agricultural information that is useful to those farmers).

This type of activity is, I think, an important pre-condition for informed, capable engagement with formal commercial markets. Commercial interests have to "see" attractive, viable, accessible markets; farmers (as consumers or sellers) have to have genuine choices, good product knowledge and informed ways to access what they need (loans, seeds, knowledge).   

Whether in mobile agriculture or in mobile financial services, we have found that when we do get it 'right', overwhelmingly it is because the whole approach was bottom-up in design, very much in line with the Human Centered Design approach you also have discussed earlier in this forum.

The challenge is to get it 'right' more often; and know we are doing so, with better measurement. 

Bottom-up wins too (and probably more often)!

-- John