Strengthening smallholders’ access to quality market information - especially price information - is an area where ICT has great potential and already some success in developing country agriculture.
Despite multiple public and private investments in agriculture, there are very few countries that have good basic price and product availability information services. Yet this is changing with increases in connectivity and affordability of ICT tools.
During the past three months, we’ve started to explore the impact of market information system on IITA-Kalambo Youth Agripreneurs Incomes.
Objective:
The overall objective is to increase income through ICT tools
Specific objectives are:
To increase the volume of sales of IKYA products to consumers
To link farmers to market through our marketing unit
To inform all people on the services offered by IKYA
To create awareness of agriculture opportunities
Approach
According to the usage rate of information technology in North and South Kivu, mobile phones, Internet, and radio where the three ICT technologies we agreed to start with in order to meet our objectives. In collaboration with Airtel D.R. Congo, we are using mobile phone to send bulk messages to farmers and consumers based in North and South Kivu about IKYA products.
A bulk of 10.000 SMS were sent from the month of May 2016 with following message: ‘’Achetez les produits de qualité (Farine de maïs, manioc, lait de soja ainsi que les intrants agricoles produits par IKYA en utilisant Airtel money:0999519627 » in additional to bulk messages, we have introduced the online payment method using Airtel money, which allows IKYA to minimize the risk of managing cash. Finally, after the MoU signed, Airtel will open a free line at the selling point to allow producers to communicate with the youth center on the availability of agricultural products in their villages.
We have developed IKYA online market to allow remote customers or those who have no time to visit IKYA selling point to purchase their product online using the web platform; the application works as a mobile app and web application.
IKYA market team have reported an increase of 20% of their revenue after the first month of above services launching. Total Facebook page likes have reached 257, while twitter followers remain 19.
My name is Daouda HAMADOU and I am the CEO of the Startup NOVATECH in Niger. Our startup NOVATECH is working on the use of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) for Development (ICT4D) in the fields of Health, Agriculture, Livestock, Education and Services.
Our startup is located in the CIPMEN Incubator of Niamey in Niger http://www.cipmen.org
In order to help farmers and farmers in Niger improve their agricultural and pastoral production, we have developed an Interactive Voice Platform (IVR) in the field of Agriculture and Livestock in Niger by using voice messages in local languages (French, Hausa and Zerma) via any type of phone (smartphone and non-smartphone). The platform is called e-KOKARI (KOKARI means courage, perseverance in the local Hausa language of Niger).
The producer (farmer and breeder) dials a short code and accesses an interactive voice menu in French, Hausa and Zarma that guides him according to his needs.
The services offered by e-KOKARI are:
- Access to new agricultural technologies in languages (French, Hausa and Zarma) from any type of phone (smartphone and non-smartphone) using voice messages;
- Voice advice on plant protection in the event of attacks by pests of language crops (French, Hausa and Zarma);
- Direct linkage between farmers, pastoralists and buyers;
- Access to food and livestock prices in vocal and language formats;
- Direct contact with specialists in agriculture and farming for advice;
- Weather information in real time and in local languages
- Access to food information for breeders in vocal and language;
- Information on livestock vaccination campaigns in vocal and language;
- Sensitization on the strategic destocking of livestock;
Niger is a country with more than 80% of the population is rural and 40% of the GDP comes from Agriculture. Unfortunately, more than 70% of the population is illiterate, ie they can not read and write in the official language, which is French. However, many agricultural technical data sheets are written in French but the populations do not access them because they do not know how to read in French. Also, the penetration rate of mobile telephony is increasing in Niger (more than 37% in 2015) and this is a figure that grows every year. Millions of people have telephones, even in rural areas.
We have already developed a prototype of the e-KOKARI platform that is working well and we plan to deploy it to scale in Niger. We have already met with rural producers and pupils who are interested in our solution. We are therefore looking for technical and financial partners to help us deploy this solution on a large scale.
You will find more information in the attached image.
I am also open to interact with other members of the E-AGRICULTURE forum to learn about the experiences of others on the use of ICT in Agriculture in order to build partnerships.
Welcome to all of you to this Q&A page for the call for good and promising practices in the use of ICTs for Agriculture! On this page you are welcome to share with us your questions regarding the call but also regarding the methodology of experience capitalization and good practices. By making your questions and our answers public we want to enable everyone to learn about the methodologies. So send us our questions and we will try to reply as soon as possible.
The forum page was intended to be a publicly accessible page for people to ask questions regarding the call for good and promising practices - on methodology - practical issues -or issues they encounter when they started documenting their experience. This particular forum page is for Questions and Answers - other forums are discussions.
So far people prefered to ask their questions per email rather than on this forum page.
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