Forum: "Using ICT to enable Agricultural Innovation Systems for smallholders" September, 2012
Question 3 (opens 24 Sept.)
11/09/2012
How does ICT facilitate knowledge generation, documentation, and sharing in support of farmers and of farmer innovations?
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Hi everyone. We're well into our second week of this discussion. The first week was excellent! Thank to you to everyone who particpated - reading or making inputs - and made it one of the best weeks ever.
Now the disucssion has moved on to focus on ICT and innovation by farmers. This is a critical part of the innovation system. Let us know about your experiences, challenges and questions.
cheers, Michael
Yes, local farmers are innovators traditionally in agriculture and natural resource management and are also actively involved in ways of communicating outcomes/outputs through the new ICTs. So much work has been done on farmer innovations including my own dissertation.
The key for ICT innovators is to understand the traditional process of farmer innovations in order to succeed with the use of ICTs to support farmers. I have written a short blog based on how local farmers innovate. This framework was developed based on an empirical research carried out with farmers - How Local Farmers Innovate
What drives farmers to innovate? How do they do it - individually or collaboratively; totally new products/processes or modification of existing ones? How do they share these innovations among themselves.
We need to understand these as we design ICT innovations with farmers not for farmers. ICT Application Developers need to work with Rural Community Practitioners to succeed and meet project goals, if the ICT4Ag community genuinely wants to support the smallholder farmer.
Ben
Hi Ben, As you indicated, some of the ICT projects in India eg. Village Knowledge Centres (VKCs) initiative of M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) works with resource poor farmers and farmers innovations were documented and shared with other farmers by ICTs and also through (local community based) print media in local language...
At least here in East Africa, the community is driving demand for both technology and content through widespread adoption of mobile technologies. So rather than ICT being the driver aren't communities themselves - a great framework for human centered design. We can't create demand but we can respond to it. Maybe we just need to become better listeners.
Rachel, basing on your experience in East africa, how have the mobile technologies helped to generate knowlegde from farmers or from reasearchers and passed on to farmers? And how has this knowledge assisted farmers to be more innovative in their activities?
Bruce... as I have mentioned before, we work with farmers in the field so our knowledge transfer flows in the opposite direction. Farming is done in the dirt, not a mobile phone.
Agreed Rachel.
At Esoko, we are a private company which ensures that we respond to the demand of our end users. If the content and technology we deliver to farmers isn't giving them the value they need, then they won't pay for the service anymore. We have to make sure that the information is accurate and provided in a format that is easy to understand. We are constantly checking with our users to make sure we are getting it right, and iterating the product and content based on their feedback. It is demand driven.
So clearly the private sector (private companies) can point to users paying for a service as evidence that smallholders are using and/or benefiting from ICT-based advisory services.
This is the point specifically raised in forum question 4: "What evidence exists of smallholders using and/or benefiting from ICT-based advisory services?"
I encourage everyone to continue this disucssion under question 4.
cheers, Michael
Wow.. how to begin listing all of the ways ICT helps. From recording, measuring, comparing, researching, promoting, selling, broadcasting, communicating, collaborating, campaigning..
We live in a digital and connected age. We are astonishingly priviledged and potent!
Developing and disseminating simple low cost 2 min videos showing farmers utilizing a particular ag technology and sharing their experiences, can sometimes lead to powerful effects in terms of higher adoption rates. For instance, look at Digital Green's videos that are "produced by farmers, for farmers, and of farmers." However, it requires strong support of local agricultural extension officers to not only validate and disseminate these innovations widely to the community, but also provide ancillary support to sustain adoption.
Why do we necessarily need to depend on local ag extension officers? I think there is valid justification to look at how commercial enterprise will leverage effective design to circumvent the need for another layer of human capacity in rural knowledge transfer.
Absolutely! commercial enterprise can certainly circumvent the need for another layer-- though often ag extension officers are already in the mix, and could benefit from capacity building.
I'm an advocate of the approach of leveraging existing assets and resources. In this case, ICT can be used as a "Force Multiplier" when applied to Ag Extension. Do all of them need face to face interactions to support their farmers? Can’t many of them use ICTs and reach hundreds of farmers a day rather than tens? Rather than build an intervention that by-passes traditional Ag Extension, why not use them as an asset (especially if they’re already funded)?
Now, to BackPack Farmer Kenya’s point, no need to force a fit with the Ag Extension model. If there’s a better approach that works around them and is still more effective, then that’s great too.
Hi,
in the case of commercial enterprice this would work, it is assumed those on this level of activity can also afford this level of effective design and probably cheaper, considering productivity.
In the case of the small holder, of which are responsible for over 80% of production, we cannot afford to overlook the need for an intermediary, though incurring more on overhead cost, to bridge the gap between. Most small holders in Africa are illitrate, but with a simple but powerful tool as the mobile phone and an intermediary we can gradually make this very useful group of producers literate and eventually reduce the involvement of that layer of human capacity to the minimum but not outrightly.
I agree that a commercial business can do this support. Esoko does just this - we have an entire team of experts devoted to profiling, training, supporting and assisting our customers with deployment. And associations, ministries, NGOs, and agribusinesses pay us for this help to better work with their farmers. However, when you are talking about 10,000 farmers and it comes to scaling these operations, that is where the role of a community expert (who could be an ag extension officer) becomes important. We have seen that it helps to have someone that a farmer can talk to if they have a question or problem in their village.
Goyal, can I say that videos play an important role in facilitating documentation and learning among small holder farmers? I would be happy if you expound on this. Have you done some impact studies on video Vs adoption?
ICT for Knowledge Generation: The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has developed a decision support system (DSS) mobile app for android phones called Nutrient Management System that helps farmers make decisions on fertilizer usage in his/her crop. IRRI is now expanding this DSS into a Rice Cropping Management System that comprehensively covers rice production cultural management practices from seed to seed factoring in climate variability and extremes.
Challenge: The system still requires an intermediary, the agricultural extension worker, who assists in inputting information required by the DSS on the mobile phone as well as interpreting and contextualizing the decision/options provided by the app. Additionally, android phones are still a luxury even for extension workers.
ICT for Knowledge Documentation and Sharing: The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) conducted the Focused Food Production Assistance to Vulnerable Sectors Project in 2010-2011. A component of that project trained members of indigenous tribes to video capture their local and indigenous agricultural best practice using a Nokia 5230.
Challenge: The video clips were supposed to be uploaded on YouTube but there were issues raised against open access of indigenous knowledge. Hence, these were instead stored in a content management system with limited access and data security features.
Sir,
In both instances the intermediary i.e. the Extension officer is highly in play, this challenge is further worsened considering the extension worker: farmer ratio which is very inadequate. Probably training more of school leavers with no jobs could reduce this challenge and training of contact farmers who in turn retrain farmers within their communities.
Secondly, community ICT clinics would need to be setup, another challenge would be power and low cost internet access.
There are indeed several ways how ICTs have enahnced farmer to farmer sharing, digital green being one platform a salready notes, honeybee for recording farmer innovations another, and just direct phonecalls between farmers in rural communities, which in fact is emerging as a very powerful means for information sahring.
In the agriculture development discussion nutrition linked with agriculture is emerging as a new theme. Would anyone have examples of farmer to farmer sharing of nutrition information? any agencies facilitating this among and between farmers?
Information and Communication Technology is key to knowledge generation, documentation and sharing between farmers, this is also the embryo for Innovation.
Let's look at this example, the very few farmers here (Lagos) who have internet access or facility are often more knowledgeable in their various enterprises and tend to ask questions that make their fellow farmers seem outdated when they gather for their regular farmers' meetings. Sometimes these questions asked (of information they already know from their online browsing) is borne out of a show off or 'You-guys-are-archaic' attitude often setoff possibilities in those having challenges and make them want top seek for solutions they never thought were possible, especially when they learn of a simple method of dealing with it.
The traditional extension system which requires the presence of an extension agent in remote locations and often the extensioner to farmer ratio is grossly inadequate. ICTs (that is radio inclusive) has proved to be of very important help to farmers, who in turn reach extension agents via phone and the message is disseminated.
75 per cent percent of farmers in the rural areas have phones and so we are moving into that electronic wallet. Here is how the system works; the farmers will get their alerts about the allocation for seeds and fertilizers, they will go to the agro dealer in their own village and they will send that information to the agro dealer, seeds and fertilizers suppliers are also on the electronic platform. Farmers receive an sms alert with their fertilizer allocation thus eliminating the need for corrupt middle men.
No doubt, use of ICT makes documentation and archiving easy and accessibly at the same time to the interested public. Challenge in emerging nations like mine, however, is power and other supporting infrastructures.
In our work using mobile channels to develop services supporting rural smallholders, we're finding the content process to be one of the biggest hurdles (sourcing, aggregating, validating disseminating, etc.). Naturally, farmers themselves are great sources of content and solutions. The challenge here, though, is how do we apply the content process to user generated content at scale?
Direct connections can be facilitated by ICT, but if poor answers and recommendations are given, users can’t be expected to return.
I think one answer could be a system of self-policing where the community is responsible for the answers and recommendations given? To structure this would be quite tricky. We can see an early attempt coming from Pamoja Media’s Ukulima.net. This is a mobile web platform that allows farmers to connect and interact on topics related to their similar agriculture interests.
First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Mark Leclair and I am a Program Officer with Farm Radio International.
I think we (development practitioners) often look at knowledge generation as something that is "disseminated" to farmer groups. The idea that simply sending out great info is enough to transfer knowledge and to get farmers to change their practice is certainly enticing, especially for those of us who work with mass media like radio, TV and web-based platforms. We see it a lot: "Let's get the radio station to play this recorded CD on the air! That will transfer knowledge to farmers."
Unfortunately, in reality simple dissemination methodologies don't work all that well, even if the information is great/locally relevant. At Farm Radio International we take a different view: That farmers actually work through a series of steps in the generation of knowledge. Transfer of basic facts and techniques is just the first step. While its important, I would argue that the next step is just as important:
DISCUSSION!
This crucial step is all about farmers working through the information presented on the radio. They discuss with one another, call into the station/ask questions and weigh the pros and cons of any new technology or approach that is talked about on-air. Given the chance, farmers are very willing to ask questions to further understand agriculture innovations. Mobile ICTs like phones help greatly in opening up this feedback mechanism. After all, it would be very difficult for anyone to make a decision without a chance to discuss its implications with others (especially those in their peer group). And farmers are no different.
By adding in this crucial participatory step you can move from simple transfer of facts to real generation of knowledge at the farmer level. The information from the radio is contextualized to the local setting and farmers now more fully understand how a given innovation fits into their particular circumstances. You would be hard pressed to see this change through a pre-recorded message put on the air.
Of course then you can talk about transitioning this knowledge to a "decision point" and potentially implementation on the farm. Whether a farmer adopts or not is not the question. What is important is that the farmer received enough information and support to make an informed decision.
Through this approach we have seen some pretty amazing transfer of knowledge and indeed uptake of agricultural technologies on the ground. You can read more about this research here: http://bit.ly/farmradioprc
Thanks!
--------------
Mark Leclair
Farm Radio International
Hello everyone,
Pleased to find this resource. I think ICT does have a role but my main worry is that it will overtake (time consuming) and not support the practical problem of growing and sustaining enough crops. I would want organisations to really think from a rural farmer's perspective. Most that I met last year in Malawi making a farming educational film series could not afford a mobile phone although knew of its existence. Way out of their reach right now. But thinking cleverly about how ICT and media can connect to the children and the urban family connections might be a good way in. Also the practical problem of power - solar and cycle power is something we are looking at and these area definitely things to invest in if ICT is to make a positive impact in remote areas. Rechargeable batteries by cycle. We are currently looking at cycle powered cinema to get our films out to the farmers in remote areas. Thanks colin.http://www.purplefieldproductions.org
ICT is no magic, especially around the topic of farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing documentation & dissemination of farmer innovations. ICT can only amplify existing support intiatives aimed to these activities. It is unrealistic expecting more than this function from ICTs.
It is also complex topic e.g. what are the differences between a best practice, a local innovation and indigenous technical knowldge (ITK)?
Most commonly, real innovations for smallholders result from the combination of scientific knowldge and ITK. These are complex exercises, e.g. Participatory Technology Development (PTD)requiring highly skilled facilitation and face-to-face interactions. ICT does not play much of a role here.
Therefore, I limit myself to a couple of concrete exemplary cases (there are others that could be mentioned).
Apart from the ever mentioned Digital Green! for the documentation and dissemination of best practices at farmer level, other examples of use of ICT for knowledge sharing of farmer innovations in combination with support processes are:
Farmer-to-Farmer knowledge sharing (mobile platform): the case of CafeDirect Producer Foundation (CPF): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPzfxuqB6ok&feature=plcp
Documentation and dissemination of farmer innovation (mainly process): the case of Prolinnova http://www.prolinnova.net/
Documentation of best practices at farmer level (e-portal): the case of ICAAP
www.advanceagriculturalpractice.in
These cases deserve further analysis, but they can be useful to further the discussion.
Paolo
.....and for dissemination and documentation of local/farmer innovation (process): the case of the Honey Bee Network led by Prof. Anil Gupta:
Hi Everyone,
Wefarmit develop farm productivity tools for knowledge and farm information management. I founded Wefarmit and I am a farmers son. I believe it often takes a farmer to innovate for farming, for me its all about close observation and talking to farmers. Having grown up and worked on the family farm I had a natural interest in agricultural systems, I went on to study Biology at Bristol University and grew an interest in IT at the same time. That led me to a career as a clinical data manager and I spent 10 years designing web based systems for collecting data from global clinical trials. The pull back to the land was strong and I had always hoped to be able to return to agriculture. At the same time I saw that many farmers were struggling with ag data management and marketing their produce so I decided to help them with technology. That idea has now become Wefarmit, we are a social network for farmers, we have a mobile app where you can connect with other farmers and markets and are developing some really cool tools to help agriculture. We create farm apps for interconnectivity, productivity and compliance. Our first productivity app for cattle keepers is HERDit available on Google Play for free https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=BovineHerdRegister.BovineHerdRegister. We are developing HERdit with feedback from farmers around the world and soon will be pushing out the international update allowing for local tag format variation. We are including features for managing medicines and performance recording over the coming weeks.
Wefarmit App Labs also offer development services, we can customise any of our apps for specific local and government needs so if you want to explore ICT solutions to benefit farmers near you we can help and we offer many years experience in data systems development coupled with practical farming knowledge and a passion to help farmers feed the world sustainably by adopting ICT's. It is great to have a forum like e_agriculture and very reassuring to meet so many others trying to achieve this goal.
Warm regards
John Batchelor @TeamWefarmit
FLD quickly comes to mind as a very effective way to use ICT tools to document innovation processes and generate knowledge especially agricultural local content, it involves the farmner themselves leading the process hence they choose the ICT of choice and that which they are comfortable to use.
Here is a document from PROLINNOVA with more details...
Thanks for sharing quite interesting approach...based on your experience, do you find any clear indiaction on farmers preferance for any specific ICT tool?
Hi all
I run a small company (www.agrinetug.net) that is involved in the business of providing market information and brokerage services to smallholder farmers. We have now started using mobile technology for cash settlement to farmers while buying agric products from them as opposed to payments by cash. This is a revolution that is starting to changing the way business is done in Uganda.
The system has far more subscribers (small scale farmers) than farmers with bank accounts, it will improve the uptake of credit cards.
We a bulky payment platform linked to mobile phone. In the platform, we create a database with all the names and phone contacts of the beneficiaries (farmers to be paid). We then give instructions to the platform to pay the beneficiaries by one command. The beneficiaries then receive a message on their mobile phone, indicating the date, amount, and source of payment. The they (farmers) visit their nearest mobile money point to cash or make withdraws as they wish.
Mobile banking is now being used as a bank account by rural farmers who had previously been sidelined by commercial banks because of their low incomes and deposits. Mobile money allows subscribers to deposit as little as US$1 in their accounts and to send or withdraw money from their mobile phones via mobile money agents spread nation wide.
What is even more attractive is that a mobile money account does not incur monthly charges or have a minimum operating balance as it is the case with commercial bank accounts.
Thanks to innovation & ICT
Paul Nyende
AgriNet Uganda Ltd
One of our projects, e-Arik (www.earik.in) in North-East India, we tried to document tribal farmers' ITKs and documented information was stored at the e-Arik village knowledge centre and screened among other farmers of same and near by villages.....those participatory videos generated lot of interest among the fellow farmers.......Apart from ITKs, digital documentation of pest and diseases were also much useful to reinforce agricultural advisory services....however, to document, validate and refine the ITKs-needs lot of support from the research institutes/ team of scientists....In this direction, Natioanl Innovation Foundation digitally documented large number of ITKs from the farmers of India....
Most ITKs are location specifice and after documetation, it demands validation before sharing through ICTs for the benefit of large number of farmers and others..
I agree with one of our participants post- (Dr. Paolo's following lines.....) "ICT is no magic, especially around the topic of farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing documentation & dissemination of farmer innovations- Paolo"...
However, ICTs are having enormous potentail to document and share the local innovations...(eg. NIF's Honey bee network in India)....So for, most of the ICT initaitives put limited importance to farmers' innovations becasue of the following challenges;
-digital documention of local innovations requires considerable time and resources...
-familiarity with local situation and farmers innovations..
-need to validate the local innovations (which needs multidisciplinary expertness and strong support from the reserach institutions)
-it is always covenient and easy to design the ICT initiatives around the scientific information which is readily available at the reserach institutions/ private sector laboratories....
There are few (recent) initiatives such as (Media Lab Asia-MoC&IT, GoI and Central agricultural University's research project) m4agriNEI (Development and Deployment of Mobile based Agro-advisory Services in North-East India) tries to document, validate, refine and share the local innovations by farmer to farmer communication and using SMART phones...Here, we are selecting village youth (he/she sholud be a practicing farmer) for documenting and sharing farmers local innovations ...selected youth will be given continuous training and capacity building (to use ICT, document& share the local innovations by Mobile phones...) by the University Scientists and the project team....Project also proposes to share farmers innovations and experiences by creating farmer's voice and multimedia capsules ..(innovations to be documented with respective farmers voice/ video and same will be shared among other farmers....)
I am Lea Michalczik, Research and Extension Branch, FAO, Rome, Italy. By reading through the precedent discussions we realize that ICTs are becoming very important for generating knowledge, documentation, and sharing in farmer innovation.
Also in our work within the Office of Knowledge Exchange, Research and Extension, by working with TECA and Rural Radios, we constantly deal with different ICTs. It helps to document, save and share information by using different devices, not only the computer and internet, but also Videocamera, Photocamera, voice recording devices and mobile phones, for example.
ICTs can help to overcome geographical distances, especially in rural regions, through speeding up the information flow between various stakeholders including farmers. This is important as farmers can be connected more quickly and efficiently with advisory services, researchers or private companies to more directly share their needs and allow for collaboration and ultimately innovation.
ICTs, through their different mediums, offer various ways to document and share farmer innovations. Of course we should keep in mind the different directions a specific ICT device allows. A radio for example may reach huge masses but depending on how it is used it might not allow exchanges. If used as participatory radio it can also be used as an outlet for exchange.
For example, in several FAO field projects the Rural Radio activities are designed to fully support the farmer’s knowledge and information needs. If developed correctly, relying on a needs assessment surveys and participatory message design, the Rural Radio programming should offer contents demanded by the farmers, according to their languages and cultural values. Farmers may be invited to help develop scripts, call the radio for talk show programs and request different themes to be addressed. Furthermore, radio is also a less expensive and very diffuse medium to reach different audiences in the rural area increases the potential for effectiveness. Likewise, the Rural Radio stations may integrate other media, such as the Internet to address farmers’ questions which can then be shared on a large scale through the radio with those communities who have no direct access to the Internet.
An online forum gives the possibility to exchange but again depending on how it is used, it might leave out a part of the given audiences that is not able to connect for different reasons. Technologies and Practices for Small Agricultural Producers (TECA) is a platform that combines a knowledge repository with a tool for discussions. TECA has been developed by FAO to facilitate access to practical information that can benefit small producers around the world. Through the knowledge repository information on applied technologies and practices can be accessed from partner organizations agreeing to share their descriptions on TECA. An additional tool is the online forums, or Exchange Groups, where members can enquire a community of practitioners about a specific agricultural technology or practice, and at the same time share their own experiences with other members looking for support.
The question, if intermediaries are important is justified. It is also important to support ICTs that are directly for farmers themselves in order to make sure that the whole process is not based on dependency. The use of radios is widespread, particularly in the rural areas. But as efaminu pointed out, and we can all observe the mobile phone is a device that is of increased importance. We should definitely observe its progress as it is an ICTs that is used directly by the farmer without necessarily needing any intermediary. The mobile phone offers benefits, such as providing price and market information, fertilizer information, money transfer and more, but alone might not be sufficient for addressing more complex issues, conflict resolution and more.
Thus, it is important to note that a variety of ICTs can make the farmer innovation process more diverse and accessible to everybody. Nevertheless, what really counts is the communication process behind it and the possibility to foster the convergence between community media (such as the rural radio) and the new ICTs. This is also the case of the application of and agricultural information system such as the TECA in connection with rural radio and other community media.
Talking about the topic of farmer innovation we warmly welcome you to TECA as we recently launched the Farmer Innovation Exchange Group (please see: http://teca.fao.org/group/farmer-innovation-exchange-group)!
ICT tools and technologies have facilitated better communication among small holder farmers and extensionists which has led to more collaborative relationships, created access to other key people in the value chain, formation of partnerships, where farmers can learn from each other so they can have better access to market information, technologies and practices etc. For instance Phones, emails and internet has hepled small holder farmers, processors, traders and others in the value chain to work and think collaboratively and not competitively.
The smart phones used by the Grameen foundation's community knowledge workers are being used to document indigenous technologies in Uganda which are shared on the TECA platform thereby helping other farmers to replicate or innovate based on what is already available. ICT platforms like TECA have created an enabling enviroment to document information but also allow subject matter specialists to solve issues as they happen in the field without them having to move.
ICT has helped some farmers make informed decision on how to improve production, solve problems (even marital) and get information on prices at the local market
This dialogue was posted on VERCON forum between some farmers from very distinct governorates in Egypt.
Farmer A: I have a mango orchard and noticed that there were a heavy fruiting in some trees. The strange thing is that, there were a "dead dog" in the middle of that spot. Is there any relations between the dog and this phenomena?
Farmer B: you know that bee do not like to cross match mangoes. The dead dog brought some flies, which caused the phenomena you noticed.
Farmer A: What do you suggest? How many dogs do I need to kill in my orchard?
Farmer C: you do not need any dogs, we used to ferment manure in piles spread in our orchard, this attract flies to do the bees job. so we have to birds with one stone.
ICT facilitate quick and cost-effective knowledge generation, documentation and sharing. Here, I would like to share our experience from National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India where we identified that educating dairy farmers on quality milk production was a matter of great concern in view of the WTO regulations and consumer preferences. Hence, an Extension project was specially taken up to develop information dissemination packages on Clean Milk Production. A video film, folder and multimedia package consisting of e-book and multimedia film were developed and tested in field conditions to assess its utility in terms of knowledge gain by farmers. The video film attained maximum score followed by multimedia film, folder and then e-book. The video film on clean milk production is being used for educating dairy farmers on Clean Milk Production by milk co-operatives, training institutes and Veterinary Extension Departments of universities.
But, knowledge generation by farmers is also equally important. Few examples of the use of ICTs for documentation and sharing of farmer innovations, such as e-Arik and few attempts by MSSRF are available in India but it is still mostly predominated by print media.
ICT has many usages for agriculture; however there are many different dimensions of the scenario. And in a very real scenario ICT can instigate the process of knowledge generation itself. The ease of use, the accessibility, decreasing cost and many other factors are making ICT a popular medium in developing countries. So the farmers and the relevant stakeholder are getting interested slowly in exploring the potentials of using ICT for their livelihood not just for amusement purposes.
ICT helps to develop cumulative knowledge by making communications easier. Similarly it makes sharing easier through its reach. Now when all these things happens the farmers are getting a taste of knowledge bank and platforms for sharing information, ideas and concepts. From the field experiences we have seen that if farmers are well connected, higher numbers of problems are solved using the common knowledge, external intervention is required only when there is something new or different.
As a medium or communication platform or knowledge base, ICT is facilitating field innovation in an unprecedented manner.