Hi Pierre,  I agree on government support but there has to be commitment.  If they use the radio as a tool, there should be some creativity to attract people not just target PO’s but it should somehow create awareness to everyone in order to be effective.  Year round announcements would be a nice support from the governement. 

HI abaguilar, thank you for sharing this info with us.  I believe a commitment to strengthen the capacity of rural cooperatives and producer organizations, as well as encouraging government to establish favorable policies, legal frameworks and participatory processes to promote growth and sustainability will help.

The weakness of producer organizations is their over-dependence on government or donor support.  It is time to identify conditions that will help these member-based organizations to become more self reliant and sustainable business enterprise.  

The public sector should be committed to support ICT investments in order to deliver maximum value for money.  The public sector should be prompt in finding opportunities to capture various benefits in enhancing access and improvement in the quality and value of services it may provide producer organizations on a national, regional and local basis. 

Shared ICT platforms, a connection and spread of exemplar projects and enhanced engagement with the industry would reduce the proportion of cost invested in ICT by individual organizations and deliver local savings which might be partially reinvested in advancing the progress of ICT. It would also open the door to significant additional and wider savings in public sector costs by providing a platform for the operation of other shared services and better support sustainability goals.

The public sector should recognize that in the current economic environment a largely standalone and "self-sufficient" operating mode is no longer affordable and should commit to an era of sharing in ICT that will not only offer better value but also still meet the needs of individual producer organizations and their customers.

Good point Peter, that is why there is a need to engage the full range of actors to bridge this big gap and make things happen.  If there is a broad consensus that bolstering the participation and position of smallholder farmers in agriculture is key to economic growth specifically in developing countries, continuous improvement on areas requiring support should be prioritized. The process of integration must account for investments, knowledge, capabilities, etc if the most gains are to be made.

Reality check, these constraints are often ignored, thus identifying opportunities to enhance current practices are not properly assessed and no actions are taken.

If ICT is beyond reach in isolated communiteis, i guess at he moment, the sytem that works best should be used.  A system working for the people and not the people working for the system. 

Strengthening rural women’s leadership in farmer and producer organizations is a fundamental step aside from technical training in order to increase production.  The economic empowerment of women, increased knowledge and skills are essential preconditions to improve status and livelihood to be able to assume effective roles in producer organizations.

Many leadership training programs fall short of their goals because when women return to their producer groups they are under-represented in decision-making roles, and the organizational culture favors a leadership style more often associated by aggressive and masculine tendencies.  

ICT's improve women entrepreneurs' marketing skills in Zimbabwe by linking the production end of the value chain to the markets.  

HOMENET Philippines is a twelve-month project to replicate DWMA (Distributed Work Management System, cloud based ICT application) platform promotes marketing the women’s products as Fair Trade products, using DWMA will help lower transportation/communication costs, respond faster to buyer enquiries, group source raw materials and group market products to large buyers.  

ICT as a tool should help empower women in producer organizations by preparing women members as leaders and change agents in their organization.

I agree with John, one of the key aspect is to identify sustainable business models.  In our country target farmers finds it difficult to purchase mobile phones and maintain load balance. Finding organizations, such as purchasers of commodities, who would pay for services so farmers may receive targeted mobile agricultural value added services. Tapping into the demand for information and data on rural communities, offering third party organizations access to the mobile phone users or information on their profiles as market research or monitoring and evaluation sources.

I guess one strategy would be to combine agricultural content and expertise with the expertise and reach of mobile network operators.  Agriculture needs to grow and be more productive to sustain demands while mobile operators in saturated urban markets see opportunities to grow in rural areas, combining these two ‘drivers’ benefits both farmers and mobile network operators.  If this opportunity is seen by other sectors, commitment to support ICT would increase.

Good point Joy, in addition, targeting agricultural areas in conducting career talks and information dissemination by convincing rural people there is no need for them to leave their communities to seek for greener pastures what they seek for is actually right in front of them!  This now solves not just food supply issues but overcrowding issues, etc.

Years back, students were told to get good education in order to be employed or get better jobs, the orientation changed when business schools mushroomed and now students are encourage to be entrepreneurs.  This mindset shift can also be established soon.

Small  farms  continue  to  contribute  significantly  to  agricultural  production,  food  security,  rural poverty reduction, and biodiversity conservation despite the challenges they face in the access to productive resources and service delivery. They confront new challenges on integration into high value chains, adaptation to climate change, and market volatility and other risks and vulnerability.

In developing countries, the use of ICTs by farmers to overcome hunger and food security remains in early stages. The phenomenal increase in mobile phone acquisitions when combined with other ICT platforms (like radio) has great impact on agriculture. It is very important that as ICT platforms are rolled out their content or the message that is sent out is validated to ensure authenticity of the knowledge and information to sustain the interest of users.

There are several ways in which ICT can address this problem at the local and global level. ICTs are used by many international organizations for mapping and monitoring world food supplies, early warning systems, and to respond when disasters strike. In this area, telecommunication and radio communication standards is essential. 

In complementing incentives to the private sector to innovate, governments must play an active role in coordinating the delivery of inputs, technical and output marketing services to small farms. Support is also needed to enable them to adapt to climate change and market volatility.