Going to Scale with ICTs for Agriculture

"...These technological applications are capable of reaching hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers and stakeholders in rural areas, acting as a catalyst for positive change and in achieving the SDGs...."

This series of seven case studies from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) is a range of projects which, in different ways, highlight the potential for the long term and scaled use of information and communication technology for agriculture (ICT4Ag). It comes from a recognition of how SMS applications, mobile banking and satellite data have been used successfully to give agricultural stakeholders access to farm mapping, weather data, marketing tools, financial credit, advice from extension workers, and social networks, among other things, to give them potential advantages in crop yields and market prices. 

"However, limits on their reach include poor internet connectivity in the rural areas of developing nations, high illiteracy rates among smallholder farmers and fishers, and the inability of pilot projects to go to scale due to lack of long-term funding or not having measures for their sustainability built into the programme design." These case studies are gathered to inspire further progress in ICT4Ag.

The studies in summary:

• Hand-held Technology for Surveying Farms - Using GIS/GPS technology, Syecomp Ghana trains agricultural extension officers in making maps so that they can map the land of small holders, making such things as organic certification, accurate input calculations, and potential yield calculations for negotiations with buyers possible.
• Saving Water and Quadrupling Crop Yields - One of the largest irrigation projects in the world, the Gezira Irrigation Scheme in the east of Sudan, serves 130,000 farmers. "In recent years, the productivity of the Gezira farms has declined, partly due to poor irrigation management."  Implemented by eLEAF, based in the Netherlands, and the Hydraulic Research Centre (HRC) in Sudan, a directorate of the Ministry of Water Resources and Electricity, this pilot with 44 farmers monitored the area with satellite imagery and used meteorological and field data to produce irrigation advice sent by SMS messaging through cell phones. Results produced four-fold crop increases. Farmer requests for scale up are resulting in a focus on 1,000 farmers in the next season.
• Using Digital Data to Create a Fair Trade Ethos - This project offers market information services to agri-food chains in West and Central Africa. "The SMS and information service provides market data and other information to farmers and agricultural stakeholders, primarily in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali." The non-governmental organisation (NGO) RONGEAD, with its sister NGO N’Kalô Agricultural Information Services, gathers data through 300 informants within the food value chain to predict market prices. Collaboration with telecom companies provides very low priced daily information via SMS subscriptions. Eight training modules allow 400 N’Kalô trainers to train farmers on the access and meaning of the information. "The project uses a variety of communications techniques for both dissemination of data and advocacy, including SMS, radio advertisements, newspaper articles, weekly e-newsletters and traditional griot singers in rural markets." The service is expanding to Chad, Gambia, Senegal, and Sudan. RONGEAD is also contributing to national strategies and policy work on products, for example, the processing of cashews within the continent of Africa, resulting in a 25% increase in local processing.
• Supporting Stakeholder Cooperation with a Smart phone App for Fisherman - The University of the West Indies (UWI) mFisheries app began with an SOS facility to answer concerns of banditry and accidents close to shore in Trinidad and Tobago. It evolved into increasing the catch and helping to build the livelihoods of fishers. "It was about building the capacity of a complex interdisciplinary staff team from multiple backgrounds, including fisheries, ICTs, training, academia. And it was about contextualising the simplicity of a mobile phone app within the complicated political context of fisheries, with stakeholders as diverse as international crime agencies and environmentalists!" The app can, with permission of fishers, for government ministries and cooperatives, monitor areas that are over or under fished and help in co-managed areas to support policy making. It has applications for Coast Guard monitoring of illegal trafficking of drugs and arms, and agreements on its use can build trust and cooperation among agencies and fishers.
• Agripol Web Platform for Ag Advocacy - In Burkina Faso, Yam Pukri, a development NGO, works with small to large organisations, for example, 300,000 members of the smallholder farmers’ federation in Burkina Faso and 328 members of FUGCOM-Bam (Fédération des Unions Groupements et Coopératives Maraîchères du Bam, a federation of vegetable growers’ unions in Bam). "Yam Pukri helped FUGCOM-Bam to produce an information video on fruit and vegetable production in Bam, which is hosted on the Agripol website" to raise the profile of growers and their need for an outlet for produce and access to credit.  Yam Pukri also advocates for specific produce, for example, rice - farmers are challenged by over-importation of the crop. Advocating included using social networks, producing a documentary and urging consumers via humorous posters in urban centres to purchase only locally grown rice.
• Using Technology to Bring Financial Services to Farmers - In Uganda, CTA ran a hackathon with an award to Ensibuuko - a grant, including 6 months' business incubation at the Outbox information and communication technology (ICT) innovation hub for the development of MOBIS, a mobile money product for farmers, which is linked to community rural finance service providers known as savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs). The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives (MTIC) adopted the system for offering its staff banking services. "Ensibuuko partnered with Airtel Uganda, a mobile communications and information technology services provider in Uganda. Airtel established a 2G network at their data centre especially for Ensibuuko, allowing MOBIS to access all the services needed." A training of trainers was done for 254 SACCO staff resulting in 15,000 members subscribed to MOBIS. 
• Empowering Women Farmers to Access Information - "MERGDATA [Kenya] provides agricultural advisory services through voice messages in local languages." These messages include weather forecasts, advice on good agricultural practices and market price information. MERGDATA also provides data collection tools for organisations and stakeholders who work with farmers. Its Farmline service is used by the organisation Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), which runs a ‘Greater Rural Opportunities for Women’ (GROW). The service gives mobile phone information in SisaalaPiina, Sisaala-Tumu, Waale, and Dagaare. Message groups can be created for particular villages or those growing similar crops. GROW trains female farmers to use the service and to train others to use it. It is also being used to support "global food companies, governments and agribusinesses with farm management, communication, data collection and traceability tools."