the Farmers' Home case study from China

Dear all, For your consideration and discussion I submit one model in which PPP is supporting e-agriculture. (This is based on a study done a few years ago. Note that as moderator we are not exepcting all cases discussed in week 2 to be this detailed. Rather take this as an example of what can be done and consder options for new cases and how we can do better.) :arrow: In Lanxi China there is a sort of community information center called the "Farmers' Home". It is primarily run by government entities (the local agriculture, forestry and fisheries conservation bureaus), but there is private sector involvement that while small is an integral part of the success of the center. Basically the Farmers' Home provides a "one-stop shop" where the community can obtain agriculture related information and extension services from trusted sources, real-time market prices, and learn about new farming input products and purchase input products to which they would not otherwise have access. As for the reasons behind the success and some lessons learned: One might consider this a win-win situation because the private sector is able to promote their products while the public sector is able to recoup some costs of running the center as well as provide the community with a full offering of information and products. The onsite presence of government staff and their access to digital information (e.g. China Agricultural Information Network) result in content that is considered both timely and of good quality by the community. Awareness is actively promoted both by various forms of communication (Internet, local newspaper, etc.) as well as the strategic placement of the center itself. There have been some qualitative measures of the impact of this e-agriculture initiative, which are available in the full report (see below). Quantitative measures are available but to my knowledge they only exist with the government as so are in Chinese language. It should be noted that this is one of several models of successful e-agriculture found in China. Its PPP component is somewhat unique, but undoubtedly there are others to be shared. The report also details some of the limitations of this model. I encourage any comments or questions you may have on this. I will do my best to answer questions. If there is anyone else familiar with this case please also feel free to add your comments! A summary of this model and case studies can be found at [url]http://www.fao.org//docs/eims/upload/192792/Lanxi%20Farmers%20Home.pdf[…] The original full study is available at [url]http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/ad504e/ad504e00.htm[/url] The study makes up part of a larger group of work ongoing by FAO and its partners to bridge the rural digital divide. There is a website dedicated to this work at [url]http://www.fao.org/rdd[/url]

Hi Noel. In the particular case of Farmers' Home there is no equivalent to the Google advertising approach of matching ads to information queries. Most queries are handled either by phone or face-to-face. This does lead to extension agents who are present on site, when appropriate, referring the farmer to one of the sales agents. This could be considered a non-electronic means to the same end. There may be cases of this happening when individuals browse the Internet from a computer inside Farmers' Home, but I don't have any information on this. It is an interesting question, one I will have to refer to my friends in China. :idea: This is a very interesting point raised by Noel. We would be very keen to know if anyone else has examples of where a Google-like approach is used for matching search queries to ads or links to the private sector. Please let us know! Thanks, Michael (FAORAP) :)

Hi Remi from Win Inc. We have hosted www.ruralinfobd.com and e-krishok as a part of it (discussed in the News & event section). We do deliver content developed and incorporated from various sources (Govt. and non-govt) in native, easily understandable language to the farmers through Community Information Centers (CIC) runs by GrameenPhone and Rural Information Centers (RIC) runs by individual entrepreneurs. Since our target was to deliver the infos through these centers, we didn't need to make it as google/yahoo searchable. But, since this is done in UNICODE, it can be searchable by google which will lead the user to our contents. Some of our contents have been coded for that approach for test basis. Ex.- If we search by "Potol" (Bangali name of "Pointed Gourd") in uncode Bangla, our site along with link appears in the first of the list. Like this some other 10/15 items are in process to make them searchable. So we can say that our project www.ruralinfobd.com (and hence e-krishok) is google-searchable friendly (in unicode Bangla). regd, Remi