Question 2 (opens 24 September)

A the opening of our second question today, I noticed we have passed the 12000 members on our forum. Thank you to all our members for engaging in this community and welcome to our newest members. We hope you will also be sharing your expericences with us during the forum.

First of all, there is need for training of farmers to understand, appreciate as well as use and apply skills that they have learned. Since 2005, WOUGNET partnered with community radios in delivering agricultural information to rural family farmers. The project employed a mixed but collaborative approach and employed different ICT tools as no single ICT tool can be used in isolation for such community project. Training on radio presentations skills empowered women with confidence to appear on radio talkshows and share agricultural experiences alongside agricultural experts, two way use of mobile phones in delivering SMS messages to farmers and recieving feedback or concerns were also done. Weekly agricultural talkshows ensured that farmers were prepared and the timing of the talkshows were suggested by farmers themselves to fit within their multiple household roles.

Women farmers would gather together in groups of 30 in 12 sub counties and would actively listen, ask questions and contribute to radio agricultural talkshows. Audio tapes were produced and given to farmers. Partnerships with agricultural extension workers and agricultural institutions ensured farmers were well attended to at community level. This was complemented with offline mediums. Project staff met on a consistent basis with farmers, asking and responding to their farming questions. While most of the farming groups had access to a radio cassette and a mobile phone, by 2010, this was only limited to group chairpersons but members could for instance borrow the phones and use them as agreed upon by members.

The set up of a multi- dimensional information center in Northern Uganda called the Kubere Information Center (KIC) www.kic.wougnet.org -  provided opportunity for women farmers within the location of the center to access it on a consistent basis, however - more males appeared to come to the center than females showing the gender dimension to access to information by rural female farmers.

The use of both traditional and modern ICT tools combined with face to face interactions/ meetings ensured success of the project. Consequently by 2010, the farmers had reported increased production of farm outputs and then the challenge to get market was the next issue to deal with.

Therefore, there were several lessons learned from this project which i can not enumerate but there are certainly links to online resources in which experiences about this project was shared and which i can make it available in case any one needs it.

Moses

We strongly believe that ICTs are an excellent opportunity to disseminate best practices among small and medium farmers worldwide. In our experience, developing a free tool to assist them in the use of best practices has enabled us to reach more than 40,000 dairy farmers in 150 countries without the support of any NGO, goverment or investments. From Bangladesh to Nicaragua, in our project we are growing by hundreds of farmers every day based on this philosophy of free, easy to use and modern tools to spread knowledge, and we think that is a way to help improve production and income of farmers.

If we can do it without money or support, based on a small town in Argentina,  imagine what would be possible with better assistance.

Hello everybody,

I'm happy to join this conversation!

My name is Valeria Contessa and I’m currently working in FAO on TECA (Technologies and practices for small agricultural producers - http://teca.fao.org). TECA combines a free online knowledge base for small-holder practices and a discussion forum and is managed by FAO. It provides famers as well as people working with small-holder farmers practical information on validated agricultural practices, in an easy format and language, in English, Spanish and French. The information is provided by development and research organisations. Through TECA’s online forums users can interact, exchange ideas and find solutions to challenges faced by small-holder farmers. The website has over 650 website visits a day. Most users access the website through search engines like Google.

Through a partnership between the Grameen Foundation and FAO, the TECA content is used to repackage information and to share it with farmers in Uganda through a network of community knowledge workers by using mobile phones. This allowed the Grameen Foundation in Uganda to use information from TECA to reach more than 250,000 farmers via smart phone.

We are aware that agriculture differs from region to region and village to village and it is a challenge to address the specific information needs of remote farmers in a particular environment. From an ICT provider’s view we would be interested to discuss the following questions:

To the farmers and practitioners working with family farms in this forum, where do you get your information on agricultural practices from?

From your experiences, have you used web-based information to improve agricultural practices of family farmers?

What should a web-based tool provide to be useful for small holder farmers and extension workers?

Thanks a lot,

Valeria

I'll look again at the broader picture and will let our peers give more concrete evidences and experiences to illustrate these. I see two key elements enabling ICT tools and communication services to engage family farmers better in accessing information and exchanging knowledge:

On a technical level:

ICTs are more and more easy to use even with limited technical knowledge - almost anybody can use at least some of the wide range of available ICT tools. They also offer a wide range of supports, with an increasing interest and access to videos, audio and visuals, in addition to writen information. This is quite a progress especialy in enabling illiterate people to share their knowledge. Also, the increasing use of mobile devices is a revolution in term of information access, notably in Africa. 

On a content level:

ICTs have increasingly adopted a "social" aspect. You don't have to deliver rocket science to be allowed to published your (nevertheless) pertinent information. Blogging, instant information, e-discussions and interactions enable family farmers to be consumer, disseminater and producer of information - to access and to exchange. I may emphasize the value of "telling stories", practice motivated by "social media", as an extension of this idea: there can't be fear of being wrong when people actually talk about what they know most: their day-to-day Life. Then, they get the chance to put it into perspectives through discussions and sharing of opinions and experiences with others. Last but not least, thanks to ICTs, target groups receive information fresher/within short delays (vs publications sent by post).

Dear All

Please share your experiences in making information  a transacted/paid service

Dear All,

It is so encouraging to get highlights of various initiatives and thoughts. I am inspired by the WOUGNET's initiative as explained by Moses, in which an attempt to generate local relevant content has been highlighted. The TECA 'Online' Knowledge Base by FAO highlights some success story which has inspired me, and I see all these points related to the generation and management of Local and Relevant Content for family farmers.

At the heart of agricultural and other related information access and knowledge exchange is content. Farmers usually find more useful, content which has been repackaged to suit their information needs, is dynamic, delivered through a medium which they find comfortable to use and convinient to access, from trusted sources, and preferably in whose generation they have participated. 

Family farmers belong to a culture, a community, they have indigenious languages, levels of trust for local leaders and whoever and whatever they perceive strange. Depending on the community's norm on these issues it would determine the level of trust as well as whether they can buy into an initiative. Family farmers are interested in local content which is dynamic, relevant and close to their traditional way of life. The language used, the personalities involved, as well as, the cultural touch between the content and their way of life, all have an influence on the level at which family farmers will adopt, use and apply the agricultural information /content or use the communication services offered. 

ICT tools makes it possible for participatory content management approaches to be used. Simple and easy to use ICT tools such as mini-video cams can be made available to family farmers or simply with their simple mobile phones with camera features, can be trained on basic use of these devices to record their activities, group discussions in focus groups, or capture images of pests or other challenges and share them with peers or experts, for possible help (Information access and knowledge exchange). As part of some Contest by YPARD in 2012, I did a short video on challenges a young female farmer was facing and how the use of ICTs can be of help, I used my simple handheld digital cam to record this and free software to edit it... while doing this, I was also training 2 11th grade students on story telling... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx1D0rCDh6U . This is a typical example of how these simple tools can be put in the hands of family farmers... Another effort is that of the story telling project http://i-am-the-story.ning.com which produced free tutorial guides for young people to tell stories using handheld cams and mobile phones, and sample videos are there... We have to appreciate here the fact that the common government extension officers are for instance in Africa, insuffient. Besides it should be noted that local content can be strategically combined with other content provided it is repackaged to suit the local language, medium of delivery, and the cultural aspect; a local touch.

Thus, ICT tools and communication services engage family farmers in accessing information and exchanging knowledge even more effectively and sustainable by involving them in the content management cycle, placing an emphasis on a Local Content approach.     

Hello All,

I'm happy with these interesting discussions. The volume of response and enthousiasm alone are indication enough of the potential of ICT in agricultural development!

This rightly-founded optimism aside, I think there is also cause for a critical perspective on how projects in this space are set up. One of the points for my greater concern is wrapped in the way that the question to this discussion string is formulated. The question, in my perspective, overemphasizes the importance of the solution, rather than the way the opportunity for the solution was defined.

Why is this relevant? Technology is always an amplification of existing behavior. If we understand the behavioral rationale of the intended end-users of a product or service, then we are better able to design specific solutions that connect with the jobs they're trying to get done.

However, by omitting opportunity definition from the presentation of the solution case, we lose the insights that were used to create the service in the first place. We won't be able to improve and learn about our approaches, let alone create conditions for replication and scale.

So instead of the question above, I would give the discussion a different angle. Perhaps something along the following line: 

What are relevant insights about family farmers that can inform the design of ICT and communication services that target them?

As an example I would suggest to read this blog entry from the people at ESOKO, an SMS-based communication services for farmers

The writer mentions how ESOKO stumbled on use cases after developing and implementing their solution. That is not the way I would recommend doing it. Some exploratory user research would have helped define these surprises upfront. But the point is that farmers, luckily, found their own way in use of the platform to do the existing jobs of meetings, and getting feedback on using a new pesticides more effectively and efficiently. 

Sorry to be a bit of a curmudgeon here, but I think the above is often missing in our conversations, and that it hampers our progress. I hope to hear about your perspective on this.

Best wishes

Bart

@bartdoorneweert

Ongoing at IFAD, within the framework of the Year of Family Farming - follow the webstream: http://webcasting.ifad.org/ict4youth

Some highlights will be shared on this forum.

We have been discussing about the use of ICTs to support knowledge sharing and families to adopt best practices. I want to bring another topic here which is as important, using ICTs to help businesses transact with smallholder farmers. This might not address Nafia question on transacted or paid services as we are still on prototype phase but should evolve to a fee per service model if successful.

m-sourcing:

In southwest Colombia, Grameen Foundation is providing ICT services to family horticultural farmers that are organized in small associations and then one commercial company (aggregator) sells their produce to large Colombian supermarkets and grocery stores. Working with this aggregator, we are currently testing the viability of a mobile sourcing (mSourcing) and mobile purchasing tool (mPurchasing) to promote efficiency and standardize product sourcing processes; increasing farmer revenues and participation.

Connecting smallholder farmers to the market, this commercial aggregator is an indispensable ally for farmers and their associations. It takes daily supermarket orders, disperses these orders among the associations, and delivers the final products from the associations to the grocery stores. While the commercial aggregator connects farmers to the market, it does so in an inefficient way. They previously managed order sourcing, purchasing, and sales using a series of simple spreadsheets, whiteboards and mostly phone calls. One of the biggest inefficiencies of this approach is that the aggregator does not or inadequately collects information about individual farmers, associations, and products requested and delivered, delaying farmer payments and leading to incorrect information and production planning. Because the aggregator did not previously track this information, there was little transparency in the processes and family farmers knew very little about the final delivery of their product. Additionally, farmers did not have the correct information about the quantities of crops they should be planting and harvesting.

To solve these inefficiencies and lack of information sharing with family farmers, we are developing an m-Sourcing tool (with plans to build an m-Purchasing tool in the future). Through a series of surveys done on mobile phones and tablets, grocery store orders are placed, assigned to associations, and assigned to farmers as purchase tickets. These surveys provide real-time updates to a series of reports, which are then used to provide association leaders more detailed information about each individual farmer and to make farmer payments.

While we are still in the prototype stages of this ICT project, we have already been met with positive results.

• 40 hours of admo. work a week eliminated in report building at the aggrgator level
• 1,577 order cycles completed
• $42,667 in sales in the last month
• 13,164 surveys completed

Farmer buy-in: 

Farmers are excited about the project and have approached Grameen Foundation about additional functionalities that they would like to see in the mSourcing tool like

• Production planning surveys
• Text messages notifying them about orders and payment
• Farm management plans
• Yearly and monthly production planning
• Traceability for products.

In the future, this technology will be amplified to involve farmer level reports that farmers themselves receive, to provide agricultural extension services (information about crop production and quality will be loaded onto the tablets and shared with farmers), text message notifications, and mobile payments. We expect that these tools respond to a current market failure, and if we can continue to provide value to established businesses then these will continue to transact from smallholder farmers and maybe one day, this can be a fee per service model.

Alberto ... Hallelujah !  More than changing the behavior of rural / smallholder farmers, we need to change our own behavior and set realistic expectations on any ICT tool, especially when many of them have been designed with a limited commercial approach.   

But as many projects / tools continue to focus on production, we ignore "access to market."  As farmers quality and yields increase, many continue to struggle to generate significantly more income because no one bothered to engage the commercial marekt.  Even if farmers want to attract new buyers, they don't yet have these skills or just the simple financial or technical capacity to move their crops to wholesale buyers.  

I am especially frustrated with schemes planning to export their products but havden't taken into account the need for food safety certifications like Global GAP, required by the EU. But even crash crops like coffee, tea and cotton require safe production and many buyers now require better traceability.  So more than just pushing contnet, we need to be able to pull data from farmers.  Along these lines, both Grameen and ESOKO have done some interesting work but am still unsure of both the potential for their financial self-sustainabilty and growth. 

Dear all,

Thanks for the contributions! We found some points very interesting.

Nafia mentioned a point TECA is especially attentive about. We try to make sure that the practices and technologies uploaded on TECA are in an easy non-academic language and are illustrative through images and videos.

It is also important that the information should come from trusted sources. For this reason institutions and not individuals are allowed to upload materials on TECA.The focus on businesses transactions and access to market for smallholder farmers is also very important. On TECA we cover this topic in the category “post-harvest and marketing”, but is definitely a topic which needs more focus. Probably there are better ICT tools than a knowledge base to assist people in these issues.

From a global perspective it is difficult to address the needs of single local communities. Actors on the ground are essential in assisting them: they are more trusted as they know the local settings and communities. There are different steps and actors passing on information. We think as a globally operating actor it is important to collaborate with institutions working on the ground, who have the capacity of involving communities. ICTs have to be easily accessible, adaptable and transferable to meet different local needs and institutional settings.

 Radio and phones are major tools which are highly used in rural areas by family farmers. Using these tools to access information and exchanging knowledge is an efficiency and effective way to family farmers. This has been proven positively from one of the project we had recently in few regions. Journalists, farmers, broadcasters, agricultural extension ofificers and other agricultural stakeholders were brought together and work so closely. Farmers meet once a month and discuss the issues they face. Then issues are presented to agricultural extension workers who works with journalists/broadcasters to prepare the series of radio programs for farmers in relation to the issues raised. The radio program aired to the radio and incase there is any query, there was a system that allow farmers to communicate feedback with the broadcaters through phone. 

Moreover, there was a mobile application through which farmers were able to access different information  by choosing any topic  they want to learn more.

This approach is very useful as it helps to communicate with large number of the farmers especially in rural area within a short time. It also helps to address the problem of shortage of agricultural extension workers which is the case in Tanzania.

 Hello everyone

ICT is a relatively new instrument in the struggle for the elimination of
hunger and poverty. The World Bank, in its Strategy Paper TIC2 year
2002 states that 'information technology and communication are an item
key to growth and economic development. They provide opportunities for
global integration while retaining the identity of traditional societies. ICT
may increase the economic and social welfare of the poor and empower individuals and
communities. Finally, ICT can improve the effectiveness, efficiency and
transparency of the public sector, including the provision of social services. '
One lesson that usually emanates from the initiatives that use ICT for development
is that success is possible but that this program should be designed and
implemented carefully. Premature enthusiasm and conviction that
ICT prove to be the panacea to development problems has
led to a number of failed attempts to have a bad reputation in ICT
major development circles. 'After years of debates in the field of development
about rusty tractors or failed projects and infrastructure after years of
accumulated in participatory communication, it seems that experience are repeating
same errors and weaknesses in the race to make the benefits of new
information technology and communication available to all. abound
stories about government-sponsored telecenters or NGO that
are empty, with its abandoned or stolen or being used only for equipment
those who have money to pay. There are even theories developed participatory
decades ago, issues arising from a similar scenario, albeit with different
tecnologías'3

Dear All,

It is a pleasure to join this discussion. I would like to share some field experiences about to how to facilitate access to knowledge and information to farmers through Communication for development (ComDev). I think the issue is that there is a need for planned and systematic use of communication activities/processes rather than just media and ICTs. There is also a need for reliable rural communication services integrating several media (ICTs, community media, etc) to serve multiple purposes, as well as for mechanisms to allow farmers’ participation in the definition of these services.

 I would like to refer to an example from the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS). AIS  includes a multitude of actors, such as producer organizations, research institutes, extension and advisory services, universities, governments, individual farmers, producer organizations and private sector groups (traders, processors, supermarkets, etc.) involved in a variety of processes related to improving agriculture. Communication plays a key role in linking up those actors and in improving the processes and services related to agricultural innovation. In particular extension and research institutions, as well as farmers organizations may benefit a great deal by including systematically ComDev strategies and plans based on needs assessment of information and communication needs of different rural audiences along the value chain.  

 The application of ComDev in AIS can be well exemplified by the work of the Communication for Sustainable Development Initiative (CSDI) in Bolivia. The project was launched in 2008 by FAO to develop, test and implement ComDev strategies and tools for sound environmental practices and sustainable rural development.

 In collaboration with the National Institute for Innovation in Agriculture, Livestock and Forestry (INIAF) a national ComDev plan was implemented to enhance participation, dialogue and knowledge sharing among different AIS stakeholders. The project carried out participatory communication appraisals (PRCA) in order to identify needs of rural communities and local institutions in four pilot areas tackling topics prioritized by INIAF and other agricultural organizations. Furthermore, in each pilot area communication a series of Espacios Locales de concertación (Local negotiation space) were facilitated – involving farmer organizations and cooperatives, small-scale producers, local governments, NGOs and media - as platforms for dialogue and informed decision making.

 Based on the results of local consultations, each community came up with a Local Innovation and Communication Plan (PLIC) identifying activities to support agricultural innovation and to  at building local communication capacities.  In particular, a set of communication tools and materials were developed and consolidated into knowledge and communication modules (KCM), following the principles of the Audiovisual Pedagogy:

• recovery of farmers’ traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge;
• direct reference to the producers’ reality and use of local language;
• practical learning designed for smallholders and rural families;
• active participation of producers in the collective learning process;
• training sessions carried out where producers live, not interfering in productive activities;
• use of audiovisual media to overcome literacy barriers for transmission of knowledge;
• choice of appropriate technical information according to the different groups.

 Each KCM consists of a set of information and communication tools including videos, audio tracks and printed materials such as booklets, guides, flipcharts, brochures and posters.

As a tangible result of this experience a series of PLICs based on the use of KCM were implemented in each pilot area to share local and technical knowledge and facilitate participatory learning:

1. Pasture management for dairy cattle
2. Direct sowing for sustainable production
3. Water harvesting for diversified crops
4. Forage conservation: sorghum silage

 .An evaluation case study conducted in the project area highlighted how the ComDev methods used were appropriate to the characteristics of the target population. The training approach was primarily based on learning-by-doing, knowledge dialogue and exchange of experiences, conducted in a highly participatory, dynamic and interactive manner. The set of multimedia materials developed, especially video, proved effective in showing the concrete possibility for change and innovation in local settings. The end-users were considerably satisfied with the capacity development offered at community level. Video was considered the most relevant and useful tool to show similar farming experiences and demonstrate how the production increase experienced by other producers who adopted a new practice. The facilitators were satisfied with the process of mutual learning and consolidated their capacity to use ComDev methods as a tool for their work. The study detected new knowledge and work practices in the community, as a result of the training and practical activities that sparked the interest of the participants and motivated them to adopt the innovation.

This experience showcase the need for a shift from the use of ICTs for technology transfer based, to a broader understanding of how to involve multiple stakeholders in an innovation process through ComDev. A way to approach agricultural innovation and to promote social change based on a participatory communication approach rather than technologies.

Dear Colleagues:

My last contribution drew attention to issues of exclusion of family farmers in the use of ICTs.

There are very few documented narrations of the thousands of ICT initiatives across the developing world in agriculture that have not yielded their stated potential and have been unsuccessful.  Because of this, we cannot learn more about why these initiatives failed.

The abuse of ICTs that have seriously affected smallholder farmers has also not been recorded in significant numbers. That does not mean there is no abuse. There is. Let me give to an example.  In India, in the State of Karnataka, some very progressive Government administrators initiated a project to use GIS for electronic documentation of land ownership of farmers. Once the maps were drawn and publicly available, in addition to helping farmers, it also helped land sharks to grab land that did not have clear ownership or were owned by the Government. This was easy to do since the information was easily available. The result was farmers who owned ancestral lands but without clear legal documents were jeopardized in losing their land to these land grabbers. Also public lands which were used as communal pastures or as village lakes and ponds were relatively easy to grab as the Government could not easily maintain a watch of all of the land in its ownership and which could easily be disputed as water levels that demarcate these lands can vary and can be made to change to benefit those without scruples especially those that had political power. Resource poor smallholder farmers who grazed their animals on these lands lost out to the land grabbers who could manipulate the now easily available electronically kept land records.

In the UK, after the incidences of “mad cow disease” (BSE), private small-scale butcheries and small abattoirs were drastically affected by rules that enforced traceability (largely through electronic means) of the meat. This has made farmers producing meat dependent on large abattoirs that are usually owned by large food processing companies and supermarkets for selling their animals. This effectively removed the smallholder family farmers selling their own meat in local markets. A more unrecorded phenomenon was that farmers who traditionally produced local foods such as meat pies and sausages and retained a cultural heritage could not do so using the meat they had produced on their own farms. Thus the farmers not only lost economically and became dependent on large corporates but also the local heritage and culture was severely affected.  As a consequence tourism and other similar vocations that contributed significantly as additional income for farmers were affected by the need for traceability that used ICT to manage records. It is not very difficult to reason why rural areas in UK and Europe are losing out farmers at a very rapid rate affecting rural economies, the environment and cultural heritage.

As experts in ICT use in agriculture, we must concern ourselves in exploring how information flows which are in consonance with commodities and associated financial flows in farming and production systems and the Agri-food chains and which cannot be disaggregated from each other, contribute and affect smallholder family farmers? We must analyze and document all phenomenon in ICTs use at a systems level. We must consider what happens when a farmer uses m-Pesa or Bitcoin which are not backed by conventional banking systems and have no reliable government assurance which is one of the key functions of the banks.

We must also explore how ICTs can help develop farming systems that can stop adverse phenomenon for farmers to happen. We need farming for many reasons other than food production. We must also consider whether the uses of ICTs are contributing to exclusion or inclusion in the farming systems that we now contribute to develop and innovate. Would the world like to have rural slums as we have urban slums of excluded individuals serving from the margins of societies rural industrial complexes that produce food and other agricultural products? And, all this because indiscriminate use of ICTs contributed to this happening.

Warm regards,

Ajit

Ajit Maru, GFAR

ICT as I said before but with limits, always good to anticipate good and bad things.

Let me come back to this point in order to share key points shared by CTA youth group on “The use of ICTs to strengthen link between youth and family farming”. (currently discussed)
- ICTs help promote youth involvement in agriculture by enhancing their opportunities, motivations and capacities.
- ICTs also contribute to improving youth livelihoods, agricultural modernisation and creating benefits throughout value chains.
They discussed:
a. how can we make better use of ICTs to address these issues the specific challenges faced by youth in family farming?b. Do we have examples of projects/initiatives in this area?

They highlighted that there are different types of young people: 

1. Youths fully and naturally passionate about agriculture (lower percentage)
2.  Youth with current high unemployment rates trying to tap into agriculture for income generation.
3.  youths with stable backgrounds ( i.e. parents/ guardians have resources such as capital, infrastructure, large social and connections)
4. Rural Youths with, no access to capital, resources, knowledge. (Constitute majority)

Main challenges are:

1. I view it as different classes of youth it will require different ICT initiatives. Some rural areas in Africa, are really undeveloped, without mobiles networks, no electricity.
2. Accessing relevant information or content to upscale their family farming.
3. Market information, access and finance.
4. Tackling the negative image of agriculture by giving a positive image agriculture through success stories of young people in agriculture

Example of successful initiatives:

Savannah Young Farmers Network (SavaNet)
Their success is based on:
1. A youth participatory approach from A to Z in the development of ICT applications aimed at addressing the challenges youth face in family farming. 
2. Innovative approach to suit the needs of young family farmers with less or no formal education.
3. The set up of ICT4Ag centers in rural communities:  a one stop centre to practically harness diverse ICT applications while promoting their active engagement in Agriculture for increased Agricultural productivity.
Check their Audio Conferencing for Agricultural Extension (ACE) project  - as published in the ICT update magazine, p.7: http://publications.cta.int/en/publications/publication/ICT065E/

Mkulima Young -

1.     over 35,000 likes on Facebook and very interactive space.
2.     Over 5,000 follower on twitter
3.     A very interactive website with over 2,000 hits daily and last month was top ten most searched website according to google in Kenya.

Moma's Farm Project, an initiative aimed at enhancing food security through promoting draught animal traction and saving labour among women farmers in Nigeria. The project is using ICTs to achieve its objectives through Reality TV shows and audio-visual documentation of its activities.The Project is fully present on the internet with Website: www.momasfarm.com, or tweeter @momasfarm, Facebook page: Moma's Farm Project. It is also available on Google+ and Youtube.

An initiative of Farm Radio International in Mali. The initiative is about an innovative reality radio series in Mali called Daba Kamalen, in Bambara, and FarmQuest, in English. The show was designed to encourage youth to consider farming as a profitable business, and not just a means of subsistence, by following six young candidates competing to be named “best new farmer.” (Learn more here: http://www.farmradio.org/ourblog/2014/01/21/can-a-reality-show-really-deliver-aid-to-africa-yes/)

Greetings from the University of Guelph! I've enjoyed reading the posts on this discussion question 2. Thanks Alberto for the super example of Esoko.com  -- also for the new LEI-WUR report Bart!

Something to add ...

Well this week our research project in Sri Lanka on Mobilizing Knowledge for Sustainable Agriculture using ICTs and Open Source Software has been busy. What's happening is a series of field pilot studies termed as “campaigns”, involving agriculture communities and conducted in the Kurunegala, Matale, and Batticaloa Districts in Sri Lanka. Farmers identified various knowledge mobilization activities, ranging from exchanging local crop price information, to alerting on elephant attack, to disease control, general inquiries, announcements, so on and so forth. This presentation will discuss the insights gained as well as challenges faced by the research team in carrying out the campaigns, with a view to developing a better understanding of key factors of partnership development for promoting inclusive innovation among these communities of practice. You can get project info/updates on the blog:

http://mobilizingknowledge.blogspot.ca/2014/09/post-campaign-community-meetings-day-one.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+MobilizingKnowledgeForSustainableAgriculture+(Mobilizing+Knowledge+for+Sustainable+Agriculture)

As well in this project we're finalizing our report on experiences among rural radio stations in Sri Lanka including important changes affecting farm/rural narrowcasting due to emerging new forms of digital radio broadcasting. Radio+ is a game changer but not without its challenges which I'll post on discussion question 3 (radio plus = conventional radio narrowcasting/broadcasting plus use of digital/mobile technologies as well as technologies including open source software that change broadcaster-listener/listening groups interactions).

IICD (International Institute for Communication and Development - an international NGO, based in The Netherlands, specialized in ICT for Development) has recently released a paper informed by the findings from the exploratory, qualitative research focused on three projects located in western Kenya.

It aimed to explore how digital tools and skills influence the motivation of young farmers and support attracting and retaining youth to agriculture. Publication showcases in details varied dynamics of ICT uptake by youths, identifying youth’s ICT-enabled journey into profitable farming and its various social and economic consequences. It provides a number of recommendations that can further encourage young famers’ uptake and use of ICTs to support their agricultural activities. It showcases that youths benefit from the impact of ICT, as ICT has been found to catalyse and accelerate organisational development and value chain work, especially in relation to involvement, motivation and commitment of youth to improved management and development of their farms.

Paper was also recently positively acknowledged at the IFAD's 'ICT for Youth' event, organizaed by IFAD, IICD, and CTA in the framework of the Year of Family Farming (Thursday 25/9/2014).

Some interesting findings:

- ICTs can play a role in countering youth migration to urban areas by enhancing access to market information, production techniques, new technologies and financing opportunities. The use of ICTs enables choice, the option to stay on farms and take full advantage of new technologies and farming techniques, while incorporating valuable traditional practices and knowledge. Efforts should be aimed at further fostering youth involvement in agricultural activities and decision-making processes. These efforts can seize on the youth’s affinity for using ICTs, their capacity to innovate and their propensity for taking higher entrepreneurial risks.

- The organisations implementing the programme in western Kenya have set up five farmer-ICT-hubs between them, located near existing markets or collection centres frequented by the farmers. The centres are open to farmers and community members and are used to provide training, internet access and a variety of support and information services to the farmers. The centres train farmer group members on generic and applied ICT skills, such as ICT for financial management, thus improving transparency and management of the farmer groups. All three projects provide ICT training to support farmers in obtaining information about good farming practices and market price information, and use multimedia and video for participatory recording and screening of production techniques.

In order to facilitate exchange and learning with farmers on production techniques, IICD supported partners in capacity development on multimedia and the use of video for recording and screening of production techniques in the field. Practices are coming from both the farmers (peer-to-peer) and from the Kenyan Agriculture Research Institute. The videos are edited into short, 10-minute clips to be screened at the ICT Hubs, in schools, churches or existing farmer meetings, facilitated by extension officers to improve learning.

- DYNAMICS OF ICT UPTAKE BY YOUTH

Individual’s personal motivations and drivers, in combination with resources they have available to them, are key factors in determining how individuals can act and bring about change – for themselves as well as in relation to their communities. Efforts of individuals are often aided or constrained by (social) structures that surround them, such as organisations, policies, laws and customs. The research conducted provides an insight into some of these motivations, structural constraints and opportunities that play an important role in the adoption of ICT by young farmers in western Kenya. Overall, the current context - in terms of market situation, access to ICTs, and social norms – appears to offer favourable external conditions for the application of ICT in farming by young farmers.

- The study has identified the following youth’s ICT-enabled journey into profitable farming:

• Young farmers struggle to make ends meet: low productivity, low income and intensive labour render farming activities unprofitable. Youths hear about the ‘digital world’: an appealing call that they do not want to miss out on. Some of the entry points: previous basic computer literacy – presence of an ICT Centre – need to access markets or increase production – to ease communication – as a doorway to a better job – as an alternative to long- distance travels for consultations.
• Young farmers are introduced to the digital world through general ICT skills, basic office productivity applications and Internet use trainings in the ICT centre. During training youth identify the potential of ICT to render their farming activities profitable.
• Young farmers start applying ICTs to obtain the best market prices, keep records, find crops
in high demand, get information on pest and disease control, access new farming practices and agricultural technologies, and communicate with other farmers. The ICT used is often introduced in the context of the use of a particular value chain and product but the skills and insights are quickly applied to other crops and chains.
• Early adopters of ICT for farm management
see benefits and return on investment (ROI), increased access to expert advice services and higher incomes, which in turn act as motivation to continue applying ICT tools on farming.
• Due to their increased technical knowledge and higher incomes, increased recognition comes from parents, family and community members. These young farmers are approached by extension workers, private sector companies and farmer organisations, where they take new roles at different levels.
• Other community members, inspired by early adopters and their success, follow suit.

- The study has also identified the following new ways of ‘harvesting’ information young farmers use ICTs to:

• Obtain the best market prices,
• Keep records,
• Find crops in high demand,
• Get information on pest and disease control,
• Access to new farming practices and agricultural technologies,
• Communicate with other farmers and awareness raising.

- The study found the majority of the young farmers that applied their newly acquired information and skills to farming to be male, a fact that begs the question of whether the introduction and use of ICT contributes to increased discrepancies in social status and recognition between a community’s young men and women. The study has shown the social fabric of the communities to be transformed by the increased access and use of ICT-enabled informational resources by youth. This increase in returns, in terms of income as well as in recognition and social status, and its influence on the communities’ economic and political power relations, might be replicating, and potentially exacerbating, existing gender biases, albeit unintentionally.

- 

The findings in the study point to a number of recommendations that can further encourage young famers’ uptake and use of ICTs to support their agricultural activities. Although the list is not exhaustive, the below points should be considered when designing or implementing youth, ICTs and agriculture activities:

• Focus on young smallholder families who already made
a conscious choice for farming and are likely to apply ICTs to their farming activities
• Differentiate and tailor ICT training approaches and user support on the basis age, marital status, gender, and ownership of or access to land
• Pay attention to removing obstacles that prohibit young women from fully participating in, and taking advantage of, ICT-related activities
• Furnish ICT centres as learning spaces to support informal exchanges and networking by young farmers (male and female)
• Encourage the emergence of diverse early adopters and role models to inspire diverse profiles and groups of youths to follow suit
• Consider strategies to diffuse integration of ICT from specific value chain crops to diverse crops and activities
• Include ongoing monitoring, evaluation and learning activities as part of the programmes to identify unintended negative effects and undertake corrective action when necessary.

If you want to know more, please refer to the full publication: http://www.iicd.org/about/publications/ict4d-effects-youth-icts-and-agriculture

Here you can find a 5-minutes long movie, which presents the findings of the study in a creative, interactive way: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTDvQT_Kenw&feature=youtu.be

In general, in IICD’s experience, the appropriation of ICTs by youth in support of farming activities is creating significant shifts in the social dynamics in rural farming communities between the youth and the elders, quite similarly to the dynamics between men and women.

Strategies to support youth to use the ICT tools for their purposes need to be deliberate and well informed of particular opportunities and limitations within local contexts, and consequences for dynamics within the communities.

We have found (and the sessions we’ve coordinated at the ICT4Ag in Rwanda in November 2013 have reconfirmed) that working with youth or women’s groups is a key driver for success at the grassroots, but only if support activities do not only build the capacity of individual members of the group, but fully integrate the group’s own vision, goals and idiosyncratic needs into the capacity building programmes.

IICD is an international expert organization with 18 years of experience in using information and communication technology (ICT) as a tool and driver for development. IICD specializes in leveraging ICT solutions for development in the education, economic development, water and climate resilience, health and agriculture sectors and currently runs 93 projects in 12 countries.

In the Economic Development sector, we focus on advising on and implementing projects whereby ICT tools are used to support agricultural livelihoods, farmer entrepreneurship, and youth employment. IICD’s main focus is on strengthening individual, organizational, and institutional capacities so that smallholder farmers, farmer organizations, and small-scale entrepreneurs can use ICTs effectively and independently to achieve their development goals. This improves the ability of vulnerable small-scale producers to access markets, expertise, credit, inputs and services. Such access enables them to increase their production, sales volumes and consequently their income.

In 2013, IICD’s Economic Development program included +30 projects with 39 local partners in 7 countries in Africa and Latin America, supporting +600 producer organizations to integrate ICTs into their operations, and allowing +135,000 small-scale producers and entrepreneurs (38% of which were female) to use ICT to access production and market information.

IICD’s ICT solutions foster inclusion of smallholders at each stage of the agricultural value chain by improving and enhancing the following areas:

• Access to markets and information regarding market price and demand,
• Access to extension information, geo-data (weather, soil), and information regarding agricultural inputs (water, seeds),
• Access to finance and financial information,
• Management, administration and planning of the farmer organizations.

Below some of the examples of our currently running projects (for more info, please approach me or refer to some of our publications: IICD - ICT for Inclusive Agricultural Value Chains or IICD - ICT for Rural Economic Development: 5 Years of Learning).

• Kenya

In Kenya, five projects successfully expand implementation of a multi-layered programme integrating access to various types of agricultural information. These projects facilitated farmers’ learning of production techniques by using multimedia for participatory recording and screening of agricultural production techniques in the field. An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system was set up to disseminate knowledge of production techniques, complementing existing agri-business programmes aired via radio. ICTs were used to assist farmers in creating production plans and collecting yields data, as well as for granting access to up-to-date prices through market price information systems. In addition to making agricultural information more accessible for all farmers, the programme specifically investigated into and reported on the strong value of ICTs as an effective mechanism to attract and retain rural youth to agriculture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTDvQT_Kenw&feature=youtu.be

http://www.iicd.org/about/publications/ict4d-effects-youth-icts-and-agr…

• Peru

In Peru, IICD supported EcoMercadoPeru, a webbased platform, which mobilises both consumers and entrepreneurs to create and meet the demand for agro-ecological organic products. By connecting 2,951 families of ecological producers from six regions of the country to alternative markets and offering information on organic household production, the platform improves awareness of the availability of organic products, makes trade fairer, provides producers with market access and raises their income and thus ultimately quality of life.

• Mali

In Mali, IICD and telecom operator Orange Mali successfully piloted the implementation of a market price and agricultural information service. Sènèkèla includes an SMS/USSD information service providing farmers with market price information of locally grown crops, as well as a call centre staffed by agricultural experts who provide information on production techniques for farmers.

http://www.iicd.org/articles/orange-mali-launches-new-market-price-and-…

• Peru

In Peru, PROMUC project ensures greater financial inclusion of rural female entrepreneurs and builds their financial management capacity, through the use of mobile-based applications and tools for credit assessments, credit history and payments management, and Microcredit and Microinsurance education. The project uses not only mobile-based applications but also an ICT-enabled programme educating businesswomen on finance and credit. IICD guided PROMUC through the implementation of ICT solutions for credit assessments with seven microfinance institutions. The project uses not only mobile-based applications but also an ICT-enabled programme educating businesswomen on finance and credit. IICD guided PROMUC through the implementation of ICT solutions for credit assessments with seven microfinance institutions. In order to integrate these ICT solutions in microfinance institutions, IICD’s training schemes always follow the methodology of community banking, targeting all credit officers, facilitators and clients. The capacity development programme developed by IICD and PROMUC in 2013 served 21,000 women and aims to reach out to 160,000. The programme aims not only to empower female entrepreneurs in business management but also to improve their household economy and live healthier lives. The project trains them in financial management to minimise the risks of bad spending habits that could lead to bankruptcy.

http://www.iicd.org/articles/icts-bolstering-business-and-life-skills-o…

http://www.iicd.org/articles/digital-skills-and-tools-empower-female-fa…

• Kenya

In Kenya, extension workers have been trained in using mobile data collection for crop and disease monitoring as well as for registering farmers and collecting information about their production.

• Peru

In Peru, IAA (Instituto para una Alternativa Agraria) project aims to directly benefit 45,125 farming families in 8 regions of Peru, improving their guinea pigs, diary and crafts production volumes and stabilizing them to meet the demand. The overall goal is to improve the quality of producer families’ supply and to increase their sales volumes. IAA project improves the producer families’ market sales through the use of ICT-based coordination and promotion of the production, integrated with ICT-based distance training to improve the quality and production volumes.

• Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso, IICD and its partners launched SIM-Agri, a platform giving 3,000 farmers access to vital market information via mobile phones and computers. Market price collectors around the country gather information at various farmers’ markets and then send information about the prices and products at those markets to the SIM-Agri platform. For the price of a normal text message, the farmers can ascertain the prices of their crops in various markets and learn when and where they can earn the best price for their produce.

http://www.iicd.org/articles/market-information-system-test-kicks-off-i…

• Bolivia

In Bolivia, PROINPA project strengthens technological and commercial innovation in local farming systems, through the use of ‘extensionist toolbox’ consisting of various ICT tools and systems by local extension workers.

• Peru

In Peru, our ANPE project seeks to strengthen associative marketing channels and to position the Ecoferias "Frutos de la tierra" in Ancash, Cajamarca and Cusco regions with the use of ICT. This aims to increase farmers’ market access and to improve the economy of their family members. To achieve this, youth of the farmer families associated with ANPE use ICT for data management, communication strategies and marketing.

http://www.iicd.org/articles/young-people-in-peru-use-social-media-to-p…

• Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso, NUNUNA project implemented internal and external information and communication system for shea-collecting women's organisation, which strongly contributes to the increase in revenues by facilitation of marketing, and communication and information flows.

Es muy fácil, nuestra organización está apostando a estas iniciativas, ya que en el mundo existen herramientas gratuitas que pueden ayudar en este fin, por ejemplo el caso de youtube. Nosotros tratamos de implementar un canal digital, que permitiera subir contenidos técnicos, productivos y de interés rural, donde el acceso al internet en el País está mejorando. De esta manera, si algún productor desea conocer o aprender de un caso particular pude acceder a este video.  De igual manera, realizar videos ya no es tan complicado y no requiere equipos sofisticados, para que las comunidades, los mismos productores o sus hijos puedan plasmar sus experiencias. 

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to draw you attention to 2 practical aspects of ICT potential in rural development.

First, this is use of ICT tools for remote analytical techniques. We described this in details in our previous report

http://www.e-agriculture.org/es/comment/12918#comment-12918

Modern devices, being rather cheap, incorporate some sensors which could be incorporated for some analytical measurements. Besides our previous reports on remote plant stress, during last year we confirmed efficiency of this approach for assessment heavy metals in plant material.

Second, ICT technologies were demonstrated as efficient tool facilitating information fluxes in rural education programs. In Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine, a pilot project was launched. All school buses were equipped with GPS loggers, which signals were gathered in centralized system using GSM technology and Internet. This dramatically improved logistics of school buses usage. Moreover, this provided information on location of pupils at any time of working day, which is especially important for their families given the fact that in rural areas school can be remote from the home for many kilometers. GPS location enables both parents and regional administration with the exact information on the location of any school bus. Besides effective monitoring and improved logistics, this enabled considerable fuel economy, allowing optimizing daily bus rout. And lastly, this provides additional safety for children, especially in difficult weather conditions, providing emergency call facility in a case of any unforeseen circumstances.

Overall, such implementation of ICT system enabled substantial optimization of rural educational program at the regional level.

We would appreciate any discussion on this promising use of ICT for rural development.

S.A. Shemet, V.S. Dudnyk, V.S. Fedenko, M.S. Dzigovskyi

Dnipropetrovsk National University
Dnipropetrovsk Regional Institute for Continuing Education
Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine

[Input from Mr Isaac Cherestal via email]

En Haïti maintenant il existe des tels portables partout, à l’aide des messages vocaux, des textes, des spots de sensibilisation, des émissions de formation et d’information à travers des medias communautaires nous pourrons obtenir des résultats spectaculaires au niveau de l’agriculture familliale.

[Input from Noemi Stadler-Kaulich, Agroforestería dinámica en MOLLESNEJTA/Bolivia​ via email]

En Bolivia las comunidades o OTBs (Organización Territorial de Base) tienen sus reuniones periodicos; estos eventos se podrían aprovechar con peliculas/videos cortos y apasionantes que invitan a participar en la aplicación de la técnología y en el discurso sobre esta técnología. Pienso que cualquier técnica nueva debería ser asesorada intensivamente.