E-Agriculture

Question 1 (opens 25 Nov.) What are the main achievements in the area of ICT for agriculture and rural development...

Question 1 (opens 25 Nov.) What are the main achievements in the area of ICT for agriculture and rural development...

Question 1 (opens 25 Nov.) What are the main achievements in the area of ICT for agriculture and rural development in the past three to five years?

Consider the different dimensions of this broad topic and identify specific categories for the achievements. Areas to discuss may include development outcomes and "impact", business models, partnerships, the roles of different organizations, capacity development, enabling environments, technology, and more.

Please be specific and substantive in your comments, and provide links to supporting reports and information as much as possible.

Hi Michael
- Is this something that is already in place and producing results? Or is it a goal that we need to achieve?
I am working for the private sector and we are starting to have succes solving problems in important crops in Spain (like olives, citrus etc) integrating this new technologies. One of the key points is to "go to field" to retrieve data from the plant processes that we would like to control because most of the times the sensors and new technologies as remote sensing etc are not measuring directly our growers problems, so we have designed simple protocols to target data from field to be integrated in our data base. We have done a lot of research during last 8 years to understand the practical perspective of each of this technologies and the utility of the new indicators they are offering us.

But the approach is different if we want to use this new technologies in developing countries to change agriculture with new technologies integrated with mobile phones possibilities. I think there is a big opportunity on that. This is an idea that we have from last 4-5 years and have not developed yet (because of the crisis), but the biggest opportinity is in countries were they still don´t have big network of weather stations: they could develop a new kind of crop characterization points that will impact much more in to help the goberment and the engineers working with growers to solve problems on field.

We are in preliminary talks with an african an south american country to trying develop this idea.

We have finished 3 experiencies in Spain with 14 companies involved and we are starting 3 new projects (in tomato, olive and viticulture) that will complement from a practical point of view the integration of technologies.

In practical agriculture we are like 150 years ago in medicine... we work almost "by guess or based in my experience" without almost any kind of objective information and without any "learning" from the farms past that could guide to define alarms (SMS to growers) or to develop simple App that could use the grower once the alarm is stablished.

At the end the new revolution comes from our ability to register and "create" each microclimate history with new indicators of crops in key areas: we can learn with a "new technical lenguage" from the success and failure experiences and this is a big opportunity for the agriculture engineers (i am) to "learn" from this experience to train growers about the "good practices" that have been able to get positive results in farms similar to them or to avoid the "bad ones".

We could solve the big "gap" among practical agriculture with research centers and transform how education to growers could be developed and adapted to solved their problems working together with them. This is not possible now and we all know that "engineer perspective" in not very well accepted by a grower because he is the whole day in the farm and we go for 30 mit and give him a recomendation only based in experience... it is so easy decide to irrigate.. even a boy can do it.

The preventive agriculture must be the goal to achieve and will start once we develop an easy ability to learn from our experience and we are starting to do so. I see that there are big opportinuties using mobile phones integrated with the learning in crop characterization points.

Rachel Zedeck
Rachel ZedeckBackpack Farm | KenyaKenya

Is your primary interest EU based family farmers ?  What is their average production size?  It would be good to differentiate the challenges and goals of 1st world family farmers and the 3rd world's subsistence vs smallholder farmers.

Can you expand on your thoughts looking for weather station programs ?  There are multiple programs in East and Southern Africa trialing the use of weather stations and crop insurance enabled with mobile outeach and payment.

Is your primary interest EU based family farmers ? What is their average production size?
Untill know we have been focus in big Spanish companies, from 5.000 to 40 has, but in modern and advance farms, with the same crop, not much varieties.
In the first step we need to "understand plant performance" in the trees sampled, to learn from its history and to define alarms. We needed to have a method to select this samples too. We are able to do so.
The second step is the most complicated and is it relationed with the extrapolation with remote sensing and data from field to the rest of the farm of the alarms detected in the trees sampled and to do it in a cheap and easy way. We have done it, but next year we will have experiencies in viticulture and olives in Spain with the cheap and easy-way.
In paralel we are starting to work with the same concept with small farmers in viticulture in Spain in big cooperatives, where we have to simplifie the alarms and information we gave to them. The integration of sensors data with data from the field and remote sensig will be the key point to offer valuable information.
The methodology will be the same in Spain or in Kenya (as an example) but the challenges of the growers in each country are different and we have to find out, working with the growers, what is the more useful information to them.

Can you expand on your thoughts looking for weather station programs ?
Yes, thats the reason i am here. As far as i know the weather stations networks are the biggest investment in tech infraestructure that the countries or minicipalities do to improve data availability to farmers or consultancy techicians to help them to be more profitable. I know that in Africa there are some interesting projects with the crop insurance  with mobile outeach and payment.

My perspective is that we could make a bigger impact with not much more investment if we move from just weather stations to characterize crops. I assume that there is no real experiences about this untill now, but i know programs that could  promote this kind of projects like Www.aecfafrica.org. But for this, we will need local leaders that understand the new technical "lenguage" and transform it into valuable information to other growers. In this phase is where mobile phones could help expanding this knowledge.

Pablo Ramirez
Pablo RamirezUnited States of America

Hello Steph and forum,

I think the points Steph has brought up are key. In addition to what he mentioned I would add some thoughts:

a) We need to visualize a Logic Model/Theory of change that establishes desired outputs and outcomes for these technologies. Everyone involved in these applications should agree on where it needs to go, and what success looks like.

b) We should think precompetitively  in order to make faster impact gains

c) What type of business intelligence data will help these farmers become better ones and how can we use this to improve their resiliency

d) The push-pull of information should reduce information asymetries.  Measuring this will be critical as well.

Megan Mayzelle
Megan MayzelleUniversity of California Davis International Programs OfficeUnited States of America

Steph and Pablo, thank you for these excellent points regarding real impact of agricultural mobile initiatives.  I'd like to add a few observations that came to mind as I read your posts:

1. Measured impact of mobile technologies on agriculture is scant and generally antecdotal.  Clearly, good information is needed regarding the impacts of previous initiatives in order to inform the design and approach of future efforts.  At the same time, these  impacts are inherently difficult to measure because they may not be immediate, may not be reported/recorded, etc.  Furthermore, as in so many aspects of development, success of ICT interventions in agriculture is case-by-case.

2. Our team at the International Programs Office at University of California Davis analyzed ICT initiatives in agricultural development in three Feed the Future African countries.  Our conclusion was the same in all three countries, and I have found the same to be true based on my own experience in Afghanistan.  The most successful initiatives:

--utilize multiple technologies.  In particular we found that radio+mobile phone combinations were most successful.
--utilize technologies and skills that people already use rather than training on new technology, or demanding new or little-used skills (such as reading, in some cases).  Mobile technology is novel and a status symbol, and so people are eager to use it.  Nevertheless, on the long term, people tend away from making important decisions based on systems that they aren't completely sure they understand or trust (or are not confident that they are using correctly).  Thus, the mostly widely used interventions are one that exploit exisiting skill sets.  
--complement existing infrastructure.  That is, for example, market intelligence technology will only increase farmers' sales price if there is a road network that enables the farmer to get his/her products to market.
--are low-risk in terms of time and monetary investment
--are financially self-sustaining 
--enable multi-way communication between stakeholders.  The more connections the better: farmer to farmer, farmer to "expert" (such as extension agent), etc.

It is worth mentioning that our evaluation of "success" was antecdotal.  Nevertheless, these national analyses did give us the opportunity to begin to articulate commonalities between initiatives that have received widespread positive feedback.

3. The last point in the list above perhaps captures the point on the continuum which Steph mentions wherein mobile tools rest.  Mobile phones have been so tremendously well received in the developing world precisely because they enable human communication at a price that people are able and willing to pay for that invaluable service.  Consequently, mobile technology improves any situation in which the limiting factor is communcation.  Mobiles cannot resolve lack of capital, infrastructure, security, etc--thus it is no silver bullet or magic wand.  However, communication is a key element in so many aspects of society that indeed such technology has many applications and much potential for positive impact.  

stephane  boyera
stephane boyeraSBC4DFrance

Hi Megan,

Very great post! The list of points you are making are very interesting and very inline with what I've experienced.
Do you have (a list of) publications that would details these?
Your first point is imho critical and start slowly but surely to emerge: mobile phones are not going to replace everything, but is a new tool that enhance other existing information appliance like radio. Does everybody share this view?
 
I would be particularly interested in 3 other aspects too, and would love hearing from the audience about them:
*capacity building and knowledge gaps
*Deployment of new hardware
*multi-stakeholder discussions

on the first point, one of the key questions imho is to evaluate the size fo the gap between what people are able to do, and what they need to learn to take advantage of new ICT opportunities. In my experience, if a specific service deployed has the potential to improve directly their productions, their sale, or their activities, farmers are very motivated to learn and find strategy to use new technologies. However, in my experience again, there is also a maximum gap that people can't just bridge. For instance, with illiterate farmers, the use of SMS is just not possible. I would be happy to know if people are witnessing/sharing this view or having a different one?

The second point is about relying on what people are already using and have already in their hands. For me it is a matter of scale: equipping a community with new devices is easy, and it is possible to test e.g. new graphical mobile apps. But how can such initiatives scale and reach a noticeable portion fo farmers to have an impact on the agri domain? This is where I've some doubts about all the projections about smartphone penetration. I feel that smartphones will not reach farmers in the next 5 to 10years. Any opinion on this view?

finally your point about multi-stakeholder communications/discussions is also key. One of the great advantages of ICT is its ability to connect people. However, the connection is not always easy, and in particular because the different stakeholders have different ict capacities and different equipment: an ngo in hte capital city have usually a computer and an internet connection. Extension agents are usually educated etc. It is usually not satisfactory to use the lowest common denominator, because it is the least powerful one when you can use other: e.g. if you can use sms, sms is cheaper and more powerful than voice technology. If you can use a smartphone, it is easier and cheaper than sending sms, etc. In that regards, I'm a big believer in multi-channel approaches where each type of stakeholders can use the most accessible and powerful channel. Any opinion on this?

steph

Rachel Zedeck
Rachel ZedeckBackpack Farm | KenyaKenya

Stephen

Yes, illiteracy eems to be hold on as the classic argument for why technology won' tbe successful but even if a country' illiteracy rate is 50%, that doesn't necessarily mean they have no reading ability.  I also think the illiteracy argument discounts community driven (human centered design) models which  mean that communities are learning cooperatively not sitting alone in the dark.  This approach could be especially effective within multi-generational models.  Both East Africa and Afghanistan have some of the largest youth populations in the world who are at the very least semi-literate and serve as conduit for information transfer. 

(HI Meg!!!)  And as Meg rightly mentions, there are different delivery methods such as IVR and video. As costs of delivery decrease, these education methods have the potential to demosntrate greater impact but only if developed for larger scale adoption.

Rachel

stephane  boyera
stephane boyeraSBC4DFrance

Hi Rachel,

I believe I need to clarify my point. In my own experience, Illiteracy is not a barrier for successfull use of mobile technology. As you rightly said, illiteracy is not a binary fact (you are or are not illiterate) but a continuum from being totally iliterate to being fluent in writing in national language. My point is that to define a successful intervention you have to clearly identify where in a given region the bar is on this continuum, and starting from there, what are technologies that could fit, and become accessible and usable. I learnt the hard way that the wrong choice of technology leads to a too large gap that cannot be bridged by targeted users.
Sometimes in some places where electricity and tv are available, video is great, sometimes ivr is great. even within ivr, in my experience you can sometimes use keypad-driven navigation (press 1 to do this) but sometimes you can't where people can associate the sound "one" to the keypad, and you have to define other navigation option. This is just to say that I'm convinced that there are accessible technology for all farmers of the world.

Now, about community driven approaches and use of youth as literate intermediaries, I had only failures with such approaches in the places I tried this. I would be very happy to hear about successful implementation of m-agri initiatives based on this model.

steph

Rachel Zedeck
Rachel ZedeckBackpack Farm | KenyaKenya

A challenge greater than illiteracy, we may need to spend more time considering the viability of rural communities having good network coverage and the costs of downloads.

We used HCD to both design and test our m-agri tools with great success.  And in East Africa, youth is often legally defined as under the age of 35 so should we define "youth" or create a baseluien ?

Hi Rachel, would you please define "HCD" for us?