Hi all,

At the national level, there is resounding agreement that the role of the public sector is to create an enabling environment for the uptake of ICT by producer organizations - whether this be through policies, fiscal measures or market incentives that encourage investments in infrastructure. On a political level, the recognition of ICT as public goods or goods in the service of the public will provide the right framework which could facilitate the delivery of ICT to the smallholder farmers, among other normally marginalized sectors.

At the intergovernmental level, multilateral agreements frequently have provisions for capacity building via technology transfer or funding support. Some of these happen as North-South or South-South cooperation initiatives. National governments, particularly from developing countries, should (as they presently do) actively push for such international support as this could help enable them to do capacity building - infrastructure, equipment, skills - in their respective countries and eventually improve on the uptake of ICT by producer organizations.

Food security is a high political agenda at the intergovernmental level - it is a cross-cutting issue that traverses discussions on climate change, humanitarian conflicts, ecosystems management, women, children, etc.  As such, there is opportunity for national governments to engage and aim for multilateral funding or assistance to be channeled to ICT investments in support of marginalized sectors such as the producer organizations.

This is why a robust base of evidence (research on impact of ICT on POs or farmers' livelihoods, data base of case studies) that justifies why ICT use should be scaled up in the smallholder farmer sector should be built and presented as inputs to policy-level discussions or multilateral negotiations so the case for greater international cooperation for ICT in rural communities e.g. producer organization can be further encouraged.

Hi Michael,

Here’s an example of how individuals, NGOs, private sector and community groups can come together to address the issue of availability and cost (and one more example of how the increasingly ubiquitous mobile phone is being used) this time focusing on smallholder farmers in the Amazon.

Brazil records one of the highest densities of mobile phone usage in the world where even remote areas of the Amazon River basin are provided 3G coverage. Building from a donation of smartphones made by Vivo, Brazil’s largest wireless provider, to residents of the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve, Harvard master’s student, Jeffrey Mansfield, has been exploring how these mobile phones can help communities in the Amazon, including agroforestry farmers.

The Tapajos-Arapiuns include fishermen, artisans and farmers who practice agroforestry, manage beehives and grow maize, onions, cassava, and tree fruits. These Amazon forest residents are also at risk of livelihood displacement by large-scale soybean operations that clear wide areas of endangered forests.

Mansfield has launched the Taking Charge project that will donate to the Amazon farmers mobile phones loaded with helpful apps as well as a user guide with information such as tips on beekeeping, husbandry, irrigation, trade, and new methods of sustainable agroforestry. Mansfield sees the project eventually enabling Amazon farmers to search the Internet for advice on do-it-yourself engineering projects (like tractor repair); to document their livelihoods and their lands, and any risks they face in relation to these; to receive weather information that can help predict rising water levels; to explore markets and know the best prices for their goods; and even to share their stories with the rest of the world.

As power supply in the region is costly and inadequate, Mansfield has partnered with an Amazon-based non-profit group called Portable Light Project. This NGO promotes the use of a lightweight, flexible solar fabric that comes with a rechargeable battery pack and a USB port which can power mobile phones, lights, and other USB-powered devices.

With inexpensive solar power and available 3G networks, Mansfield believes he has the “double confluence of factors” that could help to protect rain forests, improve the lives of farmers, and grant them some political voice.

(Source: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/11/taking-charge-with-cellph…)

The World Food Summit defines the four pillars of food security as availability, access, utilization and stability. A fifth, widely under-recognized pillar is proposed by the UN Environment Programme – ecological foundations, which include soil formation, nutrient recycling, on-farm and off-farm biodiversity, and climate condition (UNEP, Avoiding Future Famine, 2012).

The concern being raised is that we are undermining these ecological foundations. Conventional agricultural practices, for example, such a monocropping lead to biodiversity losses on the farms thus resulting in weakened resilience of crops to pests and diseases. Excessive tillage causes soil carbon loss while high fertilizer loading causes groundwater contamination. Pesticide contamination can destroy organisms responsible for pollination of crops or natural pest control.

More ecologically conducive approaches to farming -- improved soil management, integrated pest management, agroforestry, and biodiversity conservation -- can help reduce the impact of farming activities on natural resources.

Farmer organizations are very effective platforms for the exchange of information and best practices on these approaches. The Farmer-to-Farmer Program (Programa de Campesino a Campesino) in Siuna, Nicaragua, for example, builds local producer capacity by providing technical assistance in soil conservation, rehabilitation, and erosion control. The organization uses ICT to conduct farm and soil mapping which enables more informed land use planning and helps identify problem areas or if farming is encroaching in the high-conservation value areas of the nearby Bosawa’s Biosphere Reserve. Data collection for the mapping system also significantly incorporates inputs from the ‘horizontal’ exchange between farmers – a reaction to the traditionally vertical pedagogical approach to knowledge transfer in Nicaragua (www.equatorinitiative.org).

Hi Michael,

I am inclined to think that availability and accessibility could be mainly a function of infrastructure which also largely determines affordability. There are many drivers of infrastructural improvements – policies that offer incentives to those in the telecoms industry to invest in more and better infrastructure; deregulation that will allow for more market competition which can result in more and affordable choices; private sector companies finding opportunities in bottom-of-pyramid marketing (e.g. paid SMS services to farmers on market prices such as the MFARM example in Kenya); etc.

Smallholder farmer organizations can form a network or link up with NGOs to advocate for such policies to be adopted by governments. They can also try to work with IGOs or funding institutions, or pursue partnerships to get support for ICT facilities and training that can facilitate information access and dissemination, education, and also the development of ICT-based solutions that address some of their farming concerns.

Most farmer organizations, as could be gleaned from the examples, share the costs and benefits of ICT access. The farmer who invested in a 3G mobile phone to access agricultural information on the Internet and who shares this via traditional modes of communication with the community is one such case.

Sustainability is also a factor of capacity (access) and capability (skills, competencies). Farmers will need to be educated or trained in ICT for its use to be sustainable. And again ICT private sector companies can be tapped for this as it is in their interest to develop and expand markets for their product and services.

At the intergovernmental level, capacity building in agriculture, as part of the broader issue of food security, is also being addressed whether in funding support, technology transfer and infrastructural development, including ICT.

Thanks,

Lucy

Here's an interesting case that is somewhat related to your posts on people as key in the effective use of ICT and how in some cases traditional modes of information exchange still prove to be (more) viable.

With ICT literacy a persistent challenge particularly among smallholder farmers, an approach that has been proven to be effective by a farmer in Kenya is the combination of traditional and ICT tools in disseminating useful agricultural information to the smallholder farmers in his community.

For Kenyan farmer, Zack Matere, it all started when he found a solution to a strange disease that attacked his potatoes by googling it on the Internet. Recognizing that many other farmers in his area may not be literate in or have access to the technology, he invested in a 3G-enabled phone and decided to become the bridge between these farmers and the internet. Zack sources agricultural-related information, including details on how to make crops flourish, farming methods or market opportunities, translates the information into the local language, and posts this as posters on notice boards that he hangs in public places.

Using his phone camera, he has taken photos of encroachers in a nearby forest, a major water catchment area in Kenya, and posted pictures of the encroachers on Facebook. He also presented his photographic evidence, to a NGO that eventually decided to build a security fence round the water catchment area. Zack has now started a pilot fish-farming project on the back of government funding and using a computer donated by a NGO, and linked to the internet via GPRS, farmers working on the project monitor satellite images of the constituency’s fishponds. The center also serves as a resource center where farmers gather to find information on various aspects of fish farming.

While this case focuses on an individual, it nevertheless highlights how ICT is employed on the ground in finding solutions to farming concerns and in prompting action to address a potentially far-reaching environmental issue; how tools can be combined and customized to suit local context, including concerns of affordability of technology and literacy; and in eventually bringing together farmers to form a community or an organization encouraged by the now realized benefits of ICT.

The case of being able to use mobile phones to capture incidents of encroachment also shows how farmers can become data collectors at the local level through mobile technology. With proper incentives to encourage reliability, data can then be used by mobile phone providers as information service to other farmers in the form of alerts, for example.

(Source: ICT Update, August 2012)