Question 3 (opens 24 Sept.)

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!

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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:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006333.html

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..