Making E-Agriculture Work through Public Private Partnership in Asia Summary Week III discussion: March 24-28, 2008 Week III discussion focused on reviewing the key points and content identified in Weeks I and II and sought a more in-depth review of those priority areas. It also focused on where the e-Agriculture community should consider going next with PPP, and how the valuable output from this forum can be further disseminated. Content and operational issues The points discussed are categorized as follows: Win-win in PPP Striking a win-win situation is a key to make public-private partnerships work. This requires practitioners to: • Clearly spell out roles and responsibilities and address the interests of the parties involved along with their explicit commitments toward a common goal. • Understand different incentives that drive the public and the private sectors: private sector has a profit motive through adding value for and growing its customer base, which needs to be reconciled with the public sector's interest of reaching large number of the intended beneficiaries. Both can be combined to form a common vision. • Understand the roles of the parties and their core competence: the public sector generates a lot of useful information on the one hand, and the private sector could create a sustainable delivery mechanism by creating and developing the market for the information and related services, on the other. For example, in Bangladesh, the agencies under the Ministry of Agriculture such as the Department of Agriculture Marketing (DAM) or Agriculture Information Services (AIS) have latest information and are mandated to provide them to the wider public. They could partner with the privately owned tele-centers and enrich the database and the private sector can expand its service offer. (Public information, private channels of delivery) • Ensure sustainability through a long-term commitment from public sector to the provision of quality public services and willingness of the private sector to invest and share and manage the potential risks. Content development While there seems to be a lot of information lying around in the different government agencies and research institutes, there is a need for the information to be sifted, collated and digitized properly for the beneficiaries to consume. Furthermore the process of information or content development requires careful review and useful information has the following characteristics: • Specific, measurable, accurate, relevant, timely (SMART) • Need-based, not supply driven (develop only the content that is required) • Local language • Validated, authenticated by experts, credible institutions and tested with the users (check for quality and relevance). • Timely and relevant information and services through regular updates and assessments • Digitized and hosted on a website, stored on PCs, CD ROMs etc. and hard copies made available like rice production technology info of IRRI in simple fact sheets The link between information sources (government agencies, academia) and content developers needs to be institutionalized. Awareness creation There were several recommendations made on how to popularize the ICT-based services: • Use simple activation tools like awareness camps, brochures and pamphlets in local languages • On-site, hands-on demonstration of the technology (laptop, mobile phone etc.) highlighting the benefits • Build capacity of the information service providers to process information and articulate the service benefits to the target • Organize community gatherings to mobilize agriculture communities with the help of NGOs and their networks • Use locations—such as market places (rural haats) and storage facilities—where farmers congregate • Use media such as radio and theatre to convey messages • Word-of-mouth promotion through input suppliers (e.g. seed vendors) Measuring impact Some of the indicators to measure impact were suggested as follows: • Increase in awareness levels • Replication, crowding-in of the existing model • Increase in income levels • Demand for new services • Improvements in livelihoods • Increase in services usage • Benefits derived from the services Next Steps The forum suggested that the virtual discussion should be continued in the future but needs to be complemented with face-to-face interactions in different events. For instance, it was suggested that the e-agriculture community disseminate the findings of the forum in upcoming events such as: • e-Agriculture INDIA 2008 Conference - New Dehli, India, 29-31 July 2008; • Joint Conference of IAALD, AFITA and WCCA World Congress 2008, Tokyo, Japan, 24-27 August 2008. It was also suggested that the e-agriculture community form rural e-agrinetworks attached to strong grass root level organizations where conducting need assessment surveys, identifying suitable partners and priority areas will be required. This could be linked up to regional initiatives. The need for a common and comprehensive Portal/Gateway for the agricultural community was discussed. Considering the efforts needed to develop such a portal and ensure its sustainability, it was suggested that a PPP model would perhaps be the best option. The key objectives of such portal could be: • Emerge as a "One Stop" portal to meet most of the knowledge sharing and information needs of the agricultural community. • Ensure sustainability through wide coverage and allows service providers the option for revenue generation • Provide multilingual capability and options for customization to suit regional/country specific needs • Offer features that go beyond static content to assist farmers in decision making and e-commerce so that the portal is useful, popular and actively used.

Dear all. Thank you for participating in the forum and making it a success. Your experiences and ideas will help us all in making e-agriculture work better. For your information, the summary of Week III will be posted on April 3. Furthermore, we will capture the discussions in a final report, which will be available to you soon. Best, Manish

I'm posting the following from our Subject Matter Expert, Dr. Asaduzzaman. Thanks to Dr. Asaduzzaman for his thoughts. Hi everybody, Let me try to give some answer to each of the questions. More thought of course needs to go into these issues. Content - Q1 on Win Win situation A win-win situation obtains only when the stakeholders all have a common interest though may be for different reasons . Private sector will be interested if there is a scope for profit. If costs of providing service is high, they would be interested if it is possible to some how subsidise efforts at their level. On the public (Government) side, it should be, theoretically at least, provision of public service. Unfortunately, the ground reality in countries of the South is that public officials may not like to expend efforts for new ventures which may necessitate going beyond their normal duties and responsibilities which also in many cases remain unattended. On the other hand, this is true at least in Bangladesh that a kind of working relationship has emerged between the Government and the NGOs. If NGOs act as honest brokers at the field level it may be possible to bring in the private sector through them. In fact, the NGOs may actually help in mobilising people to use the opportunities available while the actual operation of facilitation may be done by the private sector. Content - Q2 on Public information through private channels The problem lies in collating "publicly held information" . Much of the information even if available remain scattered and in either hard copy or "in file" form. Also, many are at the field level, spatially scattered all over the place. Recently there was a debate regarding how firm are the Department of Extension's figures on ag output. To my querry, the DAE people said that they do it through crop-cutting surveys which I doubted and asked if the data base is available. The DAE people said that it exists. I wanted to have access to it. This was before the Ag Advisor. But I came to know that even if it at all exists, it is held at the block level in some file somewhere (who knows where?). So, the first challenge is to physically locate the information. File information, particularly, has to be carefully copied, all collated in one place and then digitalise it for ease of future reference. Sometime there may be a concern among the public officials if the information so provided would be breach of confidentiality. Hence there is a need for understanding between the policy makers and the information providers (whoever that is incl private, NGOs or whatever) regarding the limits of the nature of information that may be so collected and collated before putting in public space. Of course, this concern should not arise in case of information already in the public domain in some form. The next challenge is to make some order and sense out of the information that are collected. This may be a specialist's job . More importantly, any information that are put on the public space, has to be vetted for authenticity and accuracy by a team composed of experts as well as other concerned persons. This is essential if the information is of technical nature, be it fertiliser application or land laws. The private sector on the ground has to have ready an operational channel which has to be well-known to the people. Here I have already referred to social mobilisation through NGOs. I would also like to point out that if ICT is to be employed for dissemination, this must not be mono-information medium. Variety of information may be made available to people in which case it would appeal better to them. Content - Q3 on content development Here we need to have first a Needs Assessment of the types, forms, periodicity and language of the content. It may also have graphics, animation, audio and video clips to make it more easily comprehensible to the people. This should be done by people who can do it best. Updating would require regular liaison between the developers and the public information supplier. technical side of it is not so difficult. Mainataining liaison is more important. Also the frequency of updating has to be based on demand from the clientale. As information build up a FAQ may be copiled for simpler and common questions so that it takes very little time to reply to people's questions. Authentication, I have already discussed earlier. However, there should be a referral system too experts for more complicated and new matters that come up Content - Q4 on awareness generation Mobilisation may be through NGOs, workshops with stakeholders at various levels, most importantly demonstration at the ground level. Some training may be needed, I suggest get hold of the newly passed out diploma holders from agriculture schools in the districts (in case of Bangladesh). They may act as kind of grass roots level subject matters persons. Content - Q5 on measuring impact Several ways may be. Indicators may be a. How frequently people request for information b. How many do so c. If it is increasing over time d. If they have used the relevant information for solving their problems e. If the information has been found to be effective if they have tried it out? f. If not, have they referred back to the persons concerned and what had been the response in terms of investigation on the authenticity of the information provided and i this has been changed subsequently. g. How frequent is the failure sysndrom? Instruments may be FGD, semi-structured questionnaire. But intensive FGDs with groups of people may be the most effective one. Next steps Advancing concept of e-agriculture as well as dissemination of present sum total of ideas. Prepare a concept document based on the discussion so far. have face to face discussion based on the concept note. But most importantly go out to the field and try it out among the actual recipients by talking to them. Revise the concept and circulate among all stakeholders. Have pilot based on these ideas and if successful, replicate. If revisions, course corrections are needed do so by talking to people on the ground. but share the information among all for a proper assessment. Asaduzzaman

Dear Rubaiya. Welcome to the forum and thanks for articulating so well the roles (core competence) of the public and the private sectors in "settling the battle for content once and for all": government focuses more on regulation while private sector on service delivery. Please add to your thoughts of how you think the private sector's interest can be considered and maintained in the early stages of a PPP program. You mentioned marketing and communicating PPP opporutnity as a means to do just that but can you please use a short example to illustrate this further? Thanks. Manish

Dear Janaki. Welcome back and many thanks for the rich input! May I ask you to elaborate a little more on how one can overcome the two challenges, i.e. cost and end-user perspectives, in making public information available through private delivery channels? These clearly seem to be two of the most oft-cited challenges and any ideas you could share on this will be highly useful. For instance, what are the ways for the parties concerned to have a "common development motivated agenda" as you pointed out? Thanks, Manish

Dear Tarique. Many thanks for your input and I agree that e-agriculture certainly includes "m services". I find the "three tier model" interesting. May I ask you to elaborate a little more on the model particularly the notion of the knowledge center (it's make up, among others) and how it relates to the tother two tiers, content and service providers? It would be helpful if you could also explain what you mean by the content and the service providers. Thanks. Manish

Hi again everyone! We are into the 3rd and final week of our discussion and thanks once again to all for your excellent contributions! The key issues from the first week and the cases from last week give us now an opportunity to work on strategies for going ahead. Last week we learned from the cases from the Philippines, Nepal, China, Bangladesh and Thailand. However, there is still a need for us to be more specific about the issues identified in the last two weeks. Let me encourage those of you who have not yet shared your thoughts to participate and have your say, for what you may think as "too obvious to mention" may prove to be real nuggets of wisdom for others. And your questions will help spark new ideas. Let's make this final week a huge success. Please reflect on the following and let us know your thoughts on all or any of the following questions: Content and operational · How can win-win situations be ensured among the stakeholders while considering PPP? · What are the challenges in making "public" information available through private channels and what are the ways to overcome those? · How can content be best developed, updated and authenticated, and delivered to the intended beneficiaries? · What are the awareness generation tools to popularize ICT in rural areas in the context of e-agriculture? · How do we measure impact of e-agriculture initiatives and what are the key indicators? Next steps · How can the e-agriculture community go about collectively advancing the concept of partnerships? · How can we disseminate the learning from this forum to the wider community of practitioners and policy makers?

Dear Muhammad Irfan. Thanks for the intro to Pakissan.com. The website is impressive and rich in pertinent agriculture information. Could you please share more information on Pakissan: Who are the drivers behind it? Is it a public and/or private sector initiative? How has your experience with tele-centers been in terms of delivering the services to farmers and wider communities in the rural areas? You can share with us other relevant experiences regarding e-agriculture. Let me invite you to please join the main Week III discussion and to share with us your insights. Thanks. Manish

Hi Ananya. It sure is good to have you in the forum. Please share with us your rich experience in DNet and indeed in Bangladesh as regards making telecenters work for the farmers. I look forward to your contributions on how public-private partnerships are working or can work in terms of making agriculture work through ICT and moreover depending on the mode of service delivery benefit the wider communities. Best, Manish

Making E-Agriculture Work through Public Private Partnership in Asia Summary Week II discussion: March 17-21, 2008 Week II's discussion focused on cases of successful public-private partnerships in e-agriculture. This could be specifically on e-agriculture, but it could also be an e-agriculture component of a larger project. The aim was to identify and study cases which could be used as learning tools for practitioners and policy makers. Case 1: IRRI Rice Knowledge Bank (RKB), the Philippines IRRI's RKB practice is in varying stages of in-country development in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The RKB concept is about producing reliable and robust information which can go on private as well as public servers. The development takes time and considerable project support, but is deemed a worthwhile investment for the public sector and donors. In the Philippines, a vegetables seed company wanted to take information from RKB to provide rice integrated pest management (IPM) information. The company uses RKB information, publishes it and sells at a small cost to its extension and farmer community. IRRI follows the Creative Commons agreement: use and share the content with proper acknowledgement of the source generally for non-commercial purpose and with specific permission for commercial purpose as well. IRRI acknowledges that through various delivery channels, as the seed company and its extension, the material it produces reaches intended beneficiaries such as farmers and extension persons who may not otherwise access the information. Both IRRI and the vegetables seed company were satisfied with the agreement. Case 2: e-Haat Bazaar, Nepal An example of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce, the Nepali e-Haat Bazaar (www.b2b.com.np) is a joint initiative of the Rural Urban Partnership Programme (RUPP) of the Ministry of Local Development and UNDP, High Level Commission for Information Technology of the Government of Nepal and the Agro Enterprise Center (AEC) and the Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI), an apex body of the Nepali private sector. e-Haat Bazaar is a portal which promotes market linkages and enables Nepali growers and producers to explore opportunities within and beyond Nepal. The initiative is linked to www.agripricenepal.com, a website which provides daily agriculture market price information to farmers, traders and the wider business community. Agripricenepal.com is an initiative of RUPP with AEC and FNCCI and is coordinated with the Market Development Division (MDD) of Department of Agriculture of Government of Nepal's Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives. The portal provides market prices and relevant information from 11 major markets from around the country and more than 100 agriculture produce are profiled. Information on this initiative is limited, but some lessons published on the RUPP website include: the initiative gave positive exposure to local entrepreneurs and municipalities and village development committees to the potential of ICTs; digitally supported B2B business models can be customized to suit small and micro-entrepreneurs; capacity gap of local institutions and the novelty of the e-Business as a concept result in slow uptake of the initiative. Case 3: Farmers' Home, China In Lanxi, China there is a community information center called the "Farmers' Home" run by government entities (the local agriculture, forestry and fisheries conservation bureaus) with private sector involvement while small is an integral part of the success of the center. 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. Lessons from farmers home include: • It's a win-win situation because it enables the private sector to promote its products and the public sector to recoup some costs of running the center and provide the community with 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. 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. A summary of the model can be found at http://www.fao.org//docs/eims/upload/192792/Lanxi%20Farmers%20Home.pdf. The original full study is available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/ad504e/ad504e00.htm. 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 http://www.fao.org/rdd. Case 4: www.ruralinfobd.com, Bangladesh WIN Inc, a private sector firm specializing in content and information service development, is working with Grameen Phone Community Information Centers (CIC) to develop appropriate information and advisory services rural farmers in Bangladesh. With initial assistance from a development project, WIN has successfully developed information for the CICs in native language, Bangla. Frarmers avail information from the CICs where the center operators consult www.ruralinfobd.com for appropriate information and advisory services. For additional queries, WIN provides solution through email or mobile phone to the centers. WIN has a contract with Grameen Phone which requires them to regularly update the content. WIN employs the services of a panel of government and private sectors experts that validates and authenticates the information. WIN and Grameen Phone make public information on agriculture available to the wider communities where the centers charge for the cost of access. The 550-plus CICs (www.gpcic.org) are franchises of Grameen Phone and each center is owned by a local entrepreneur. This is an example of how private sector can efficiently distribute information hitherto confined to public domain. Low awareness among the farmers, reliability of the information and developing real-time, market price information service are some of the challenges WIN is facing. Case 5: www.gotoknow.org, Thailand Gotoknow.org is Thailand's biggest online knowledge sharing platform and a web blog community of around 30,000 active members. A good number of the bloggers are agricultural professionals and IT savvy farmers. Agricultural knowledge sharing are also in various stages such as experimentation of farming technique using blog as journal and peer review mechanism, policy discussion over sustainable agriculture, basic agricultural knowledge sharing and much more. The members consist of multi-disciplinary groups from agricultural experts, farmers, health professionals as well as academia. There are cases of farmers finding experts and vice versa in order to engage in intensive knowledge sharing and, more important, the case of local farmers acquiring scientific information from academician and significantly improving their agriculture methods in the Northeast of Thailand. Gotoknow.org is supported by various groups such as UsableLabs, Knowledge Management Institute of Thailand, TRN Institute and INET (representing public, civil society, academia and private sectors). Key learning from the case of gotoknow.org includes: • Facilitating bottom-up knowledge sharing. The site allows users to blog themselves on the topics they are interested without major structure (such as in online forum technology). Users use tags ("folksonomy") rather than structured taxonomy in categorizing their content, • Fostering virtual community leaders to bring more and more people to share knowledge. The site promotes quality bloggers who share experience, builds their sense of community leadership, thus, providing them incentive to bring more individuals into the virtual network. • Encouraging decentralized interconnection among members. Members are encouraged to get to know, communicate and interact among themselves without intervention or permission from the site owner in order to maximize interconnection of people with shared interest which results in a stronger virtual community and partnerships among members. • Diversifying membership. Members are from many professions rather than only agriculture or knowledge management professionals allowing for multi-perspective agricultural knowledge sharing. Conclusion The case studies show that for PPP in e-agriculture to be successful there has to be a win-win for all involved; the service must be localized (language, delivery mode etc.) and accessible for the intended beneficiaries; information in public domain can be delivered through private channels; awareness issue should be dealt with in context specific manner; and authenticity, timeliness and quality of information is essential. [quote][/quote]