Question 4 (opens 26 Sept.)
What evidence exists of smallholders using and/or benefiting from ICT-based advisory services?
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Victoria,
Good question. I wish I could answer it, but the study was conducted by INRA, and I don't have access to how they performed their random sampling. However, I will be happy to provide you with a copy of the study and also to put you in touch with the project lead to give you more information.
From what I understand, the control group was in a different community from the group that was receiving market prices on their mobile phones, and members from the two groups do not know each other, nor were they part of the same association.
The important lesson that you highlight is if you are going to conduct an impact assessment, there should be certain rules established around sampling. Good points!
Feel free to follow up with me over email.
Laura
Laura ... Hallelujah! We train and supply farmers. Potentially they should be able to double to triple their yields but free will is a funny thing. A farmer has to implement what they have learned. And yes, where they choose to sell their final crop is also their decision. The same dynamics exist for mobile content. I know it may be irritating to hear but farming is done in the dirt so the simple transfer of knowledge to a farmer isn't enough to increase yields or income. If nothing else, we need to start teaching farmers gross margin models so that before they even prepare their fields they can manage not just production but the costs of production.
Completely agree that information and technology are just one piece of the pie . . . in any project ICTs compose approximately 5% of the solution, and the remaining 95% should be focused on deployment, in the dirt as you say.
Other than yield/income increase, user fee/ willingness to pay and scaling-up evidences...
are there any more evidences on ...
1. Time and Cost saving in availing advisory services
2. Farm Input(s) saving (eg. less pesticide usage...)
3. Socio-economic indicators etc.
The information needs of small holders are quite different from large farmers. Most of the ICT-based advisory services are not taking care of their specific needs and hence unable to target and attract this segment of farmers. However, a few mobile based advisory services are found helping the small farmers to some extent.
Evidence from our ongoing research project “Dairy Extension Education and Services at Farmer’s Door through Mobile Extension Unit: An Action Research” at National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India proves the extensive use of mobile phone technology to receive the problems and technology/service needs of dairy farmers and reach solutions to their doorstep using the Mobile Extension Unit. Moreover, the ICT facilities of the mobile unit are used to provide education at farmers’ doorstep.
We are receiving encouraging feedback on these ICT- based advisory services. As an outcome of the project, reduction in the intercalving interval of dairy animals by providing timely AI service on receiving the mobile call from farmers and improvement in productive and reproductive parameters could be achieved by reaching the unreached using ICTs.
There is a growing body of rigorous, quantitative, independent empirical research on the impact of various ICT-based advisory services on farmers’ welfare. While much of the early evidence was largely anecdotal, fortunately we are now in a world where there is some data detecting what works and what doesn’t. A few key studies, from across the globe, that immediately come to mind are:
From India: Rob Jensen has looked at the adoption of mobile phone by fishermen in south Indian state of Kerala (http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/122/3/879.abstract). I have looked at the impact of market information systems on prices received by soybean farmers in Madhya Pradesh (http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.2.3.22). Similarly, Fafchamps and Minten have looked at impact of SMS based market information systems on the choices that farmers make about where to buy and sell. There is evidence from Sub Saharan Africa: Muto and Yamano have looked at the impact of mobile phone usage by Ugandan farmers of maize and banana (http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v37y2009i12p1887-1896.html), and Fafchamps and Aker have looked at mobile phone usage in Niger (http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/members/marcel.fafchamps/homepage/mobiles). There is evidence emerging from Colombia and Peru as well (http://works.bepress.com/aparajita_goyal/23/).