Enabling Resource Poor Small Holder Farmers to use New Technology

What does it take to enable resource poor smallholder farmers to use the most appropriate technology to improve productivity and profit of their land holdings?

Let us take the case of use of Information and Communications Technologies. The farmer will need hardware, software, connectivity, skills, content, security and safety in use, privacy and the environment to make productive and profitable use of the technology. The environment includes social, political and physical factors. For example, if a society prohibits or even frowns upon a woman to own and use a cell phone, the use of ICTs to address women farmers farming information needs will be difficult and even defeated. For a smallholder farmer in India earning about INR 60000 per annum, a useable Smart Cell Phone costs not less than INR 5000, the basic operating software may be free but specific apps for useful, customized farm support may have a cost. Connectivity is also a cost. It would not be less than INR 100 per month. Skills to use the farm app for impact on his/her farm, if not the phone, needs specific skills. The content or information from the app has to be localized, trustworthy and useful to the farmer who also must have the skills to effectively use it.  For example, if a farmer has a pest problem, just indicating a spray of pesticide may not be enough. The farmer will need to know the cost of the pesticide application, what is the potential loss if it is not controlled, how to prevent the pest’s attack in future etc. There must be adequate data and information provided on how many farmers or how a research center solved the problem, what was the impact and the after effects by using the solution proffered by the app to assure the farmer that the solution will be useful in his/her farming. The app should respect the farmers right to privacy and not ask for access to data not immediately needed such as the farmers’ contact list to solve his/her farm’s problem nor make private information public.  When aggregated, farmers ‘individual data can be commercially exploited or used against their interests and thus will need protection and security from misuse.

Apparently, the above indicates a variety of actors in the public, private and possibly community sector will have to act in synergy to ensure effective ICTs use to a farmer. In India, these include the Government to regulate and monitor the availability, access and affordability of the technologies, the private sector to provide hardware, software, connectivity and even content, of course, at a cost. The Government can intervene to provide content free or at a subsidy but must ensure its availability, access, trustworthiness, timeliness and usefulness. At the moment, going by what is available, this is a far cry and will need significant investment, skills and capacities to do so. The private sector does not yet have the capacities to offer farmers effective and useful agricultural advice. And, it will be too costly to do so. Thus it will need public-private partnerships but such partnerships are rare and the Institutional structures needed for such partnerships are not yet in place. The community will play a very big role in the appropriation of the technology and the content it transmits and make it useful. Thus, community and non-government organisations will need to play an important role in the use of a technology such as ICTs in farming. For the smallholder farmer, the government may have to subsidize the entire process and focus it for use of that specific group of farmers.

In India, several bits and pieces of the framework for farmers to use ICTs now exist.  There is availability and access to hardware (smart phones), connectivity (3G and rapidly expanding 4G), some apps though whose usefulness is not yet proven. Schemes like Skill India should be implemented for skilling farmers to use apps for evidence based, data driven farming. The Government has invested significantly in digital information systems for agricultural use such as E-NAM and I-KISAN but these will need to be made useful to farmers. For example, E-NAM information of wholesale prices at different markets cannot be translated directly as farm gate prices for the smallholder and thus does not really help. Similarly, I-KISAN (or I-KHEDUT) information is reproduction of farm extension pamphlets, many just scanned, and thus hardly helps the farmer solve his/her problem. Another major issue is that many of the information systems function in silos and hardly offer an integrated approach, for example flow information with that of flow of commodities and finance in the value addition or market chain. The regulatory mechanism for a farmer to use his ICTs safely, securely and his/her rights protected hardly exists.  Another feature of concern in the support systems needed to deliver use of new technologies effectively to smallholder farmers is that most agricultural research, innovation and development Institutions in India have very little experience, skills and capacities to use new ICTs and other new technologies effectively to support farmers.

It is here that the open data, information and technology movement now gathering pace across the world can play a very big role in enabling smallholder farmers to effectively use ICTs. In addition to improved access, all three can reduce costs to the user making new technology more affordable. The open movement can enable innovation and transparency. Open data and information can also help weed out false advice and ineffective technologies. Open technology can enable better adaptation. The Bazaar model of open access and use which allows all developers and generators present technology and information with equity compared to the Cathedral model where there is  supreme, tight  control over lines of production encourages greater community participation. Governments can accelerate the open movement through policies, strategies, regulatory mechanisms and structures that support open access and use of data, information and technologies.  However, this needs significant attitudinal changes in its framework of functioning.

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Smallholder’s Access to Information and Communications Technologies

My earliest recollections on issues of access to small holder farmers’ access to Information and Communication Technologies are with the introduction of the radio. I had recently migrated from Kenya to India in the early 1970 to study and so everything was new and strange to me, including Indian village life.My family had a farm in a village in Telengana in South-Central India. Villagers from the village would gather daily at around 6:30 in the evening at the Panchayat (Community) building to listen to Krishi Darshan (Farmer’s Voice). The radio, a valve set operated on electricity and receiving broadcasts in the medium wave (MW) band, was kept in cupboard under lock and key in the Panchayat building was. It was hooked up to a large trumpet like loud speaker on a wooden pole outside the building. The village children would gather in the front, after whom the ordinary male villagers sit on their haunches on the ground and finally the village Sarpanch (village leader) who was usually the largest and richest landowner on a wooden chair. There were rarely any women as socially they were not allowed to mix with the males. The radio program would be for an hour in the local language but usually as spoken (or actually written in the program’s script) by the highly educated and not in the dialect of the ordinary villager. The villagers could many a times not fully comprehend the program because of the rather “snooty” language. There would be a talk on a farming practice and sometimes an interview. Following the farmers program there would be broadcast of folk songs or a small educational skit. At 8:00 O’clock there would be the news and after it the session for the village radio would end and the radio safely locked in the cupboard. The Panchayat building was one of the few buildings that had electricity. There was always disappointment when there was no electricity and the radio could not operate.

This scene reveals a lot regarding ICTs and their access for the resource poor farmer then. The control of the ICT in the hands of the Sarpanch who also had the only capacity to operate the radio in the village, the hierarchy, class, caste and gender differences in the village community in the access to its broadcast, the design and delivery of content and the problems regarding necessary infrastructure such as electricity needed to effectively use the technology.

The stranglehold on real control and access to the radio in villages in India was only broken when lower cost “transistor” radios made domestically were available in the market. Then the radio could be owned and controlled by the farmer, he could carry it to his field and the women in the family could listen to some of the programs in the evening in the privacy and seclusion of their homes. Of course, there were several social concerns expressed on the “bad” influence of the radio on the youth and women when the radio became more ubiquitous.

The same scene repeated itself when television, initially through the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) and later through terrestrial broadcast was introduced. Instead of the radio in the Panchayat building, there was the black and white TV set. However, for TV, it took more time to spread to be used by villagers. This was not only because of cost but also because it needed electricity to operate and not many homes, especially among the poor, had access to electricity. But things changed, when the cost of TV was reduced through production in India, cable TV became widespread and electricity connections in villages became more common. But on the whole for contributing to innovating farming and agriculture, it was largely a missed opportunity in using a powerful ICT. The content for farming and agriculture, largely from the Government in an initially Government controlled media, was not paid attention to as an important public function. And the private sector with very little commercial benefit in generating the content just ignored agriculture till recently. Now that rural incomes have grown and farmers are becoming consumers of products such as soap, cosmetics, refrigerators and washing machines in addition to tractors and farm equipment some attention is being paid.

Ownership of phones in India till late 1990s was only in the hands of a few. In villages, it was usually the richest that had a phone connection. All this changed when the public call offices (PCO) were introduced in India. Soon all villages had at least one PCO. The cost of making a phone call was also reduced and almost everybody could use it. Within a few years the cell phone was introduced and this brought in the shift in the ownership and control of the communication device. Along with it, the Government introduced policies that made phone calls affordable by even the poor. Soon, many of the poor farmers had cell phones which they could use at their will and convenience. Today India has almost 800 million cell phone connections and is now ubiquitous. With cell phones came several new services, including the Kisan Call Centres where farmers could call up Government run Extension services for assistance on their farming problems. However certain other issues in access continued such as the use of cell phones by rural women. In a country where women provide the majority of the agricultural workforce and many of these manage farms on their own not being able to by social barriers use cell phones and other ICTs is a major constraint for rapid innovation and capacity development needed for modern farming in the country.

The new generation of ICTs coming into common use in rural India is the Smart Phone. The Smart Phone promises access to the instant messaging, the World Wide Web, Audio and Video recording, playback and streaming, ability to send and receive multimedia and participate in social media etc. Some Smart Phones can even use applications that can share, exchange and process data and support decision making. This has the potential to revolutionize access to information from across the world by farmers.   At the moment the same issues as with other ICTs in the past such as of its access, affordability, the generation and design of the content so that it is relevant and useful, the capacity to make effective use of the information are being repeated. Apparently, we need to study the past and learn from it to be prepared for ICTs to be more useful in the present and the future.

Ajit Maru

“Open Access” for Agricultural Research and Innovation for Development

An interesting question has recently been asked in the Open Access Forum India. What is Open access and What is a policy for mandated open access?

There are excellent resources that explain the “Open Access” movement including Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access_%28publishing%29).

Taking these explanations further, to me, open access for Agricultural Research and Innovation for Development (ARD) is more than being for published scientific journals. It is about all information generated by and for use in ARD. It is also about making information available, accessible, applicable by ensuring its validity, usefulness and relevance to the society and its appropriation by communities, through being able to learn from information and making its use for their own development. I call them the basic framework of 4 A’s for improving Information and Communications Management (ICM) for ARD and by ensuring their implementation effectively across an information chain, we can put information to use for agricultural progress.

I believe that information for ARD is not generated only by scientists and researchers but by all related in some way to agriculture, from input suppliers, farmers, producers, processors, market intermediaries, consumers, those who support agricultural innovation and those who decide on the progress and development of agriculture globally. They all are actors in a complex information chain for agricultural innovation that leads to progress and development.

Today, vast amounts of relevant and useful information lies hidden in Institutional vaults very much like the temple treasures in Kerala. Within the vaults of Scientific organizations, information is further stored in silos. The agronomist’s information is not available to the soil scientist. The plant pathologists information is not effectively used by the plant breeder. The case is no different in animal or fisheries related science. Further in the stream of agricultural innovation there is hardly any information that is generated and used for whole systems innovation. Scientists innovate seeds, fertilizer use, pest control but not the farming and production systems as relevant to agricultural development where it should matter most, the systems of resource poor small holder farmers and producers.

So, when I consider open access, I consider how we can open the access to information from within organizations, within communities and within societies so that this openness contributes to agricultural progress and development through research and innovation and the use of science and technology.

There are many barriers to open access as I believe it should be. These are technological, for example, the biased use of the Internet (only accessible in urban areas and for those who can use computers) and before that printing (cost, literacy), radio (cost, power supply), television(cost, content), Institutional including the lack of awareness of technological potential, policies, strategies, structures, investment and capacities and related to community participation, for example, the scientists and researchers who for some reason do not want to share their information and farmer innovators who cannot avail the critical information they require because they do not know whom to ask for it. We need to struggle against these barriers if we need to bring open access for ARD.

The struggle for lowering each of the barriers requires the entire community of agricultural stakeholders to act in their own way possible. Individually we can advocate, promote, contribute, support and participate in the dialogue on enabling access to information for all. Collectively we can act to make information available, accessible, applicable and be used by communities as today’s information and communication technologies have huge potentials never earlier known to human kind. At the Institutional level, we can develop policies and strategies that contribute to open access.

As an agricultural community member, I advocate and support open access in ARD. One of my activities is related to the Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD) movement (See http://www.ciard.net). In my organization (The Global Forum on Agricultural Research or GFAR; see http://www.egfar.org) we support CIARD and lead CIARD.RING (http://www.ciard.net/ring) for all CIARD partners.

At the Institutional level, we can develop policies and strategies that contribute to open access. And that is how, I have suggested that for national agricultural research and innovation systems in economically developing countries that urgently need innovation in agriculture for their development, we need open access to information policies. Agriculture is knowledge intensive and becoming even more so. New knowledge is a critical resource for innovation and for agricultural development and progress. And for resource poor small holder farmers and producers, information is a very scarce resource. Some part of the resource poverty is also information poverty - information about what to grow, how and when, where to market, how to market and who to market to.

The Indian national agricultural and innovation system has taken a progressive step to provide open access to some of the scientific journals it publishes. We have to recognize that it is exemplary for similar systems across the world. The question is: Is it enough? Especially for a country where 60 per cent of the rural population depends on agriculture and more than 80 per cent are of this population are small holders, a majority of them resource poor. I believe open information access as I define it can resolve their poverty significantly. I am suggesting that the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the State Agricultural Universities who are public Institutions in India and largely funded by public money and are also major generators of agricultural information, have as a mandate, policies that enable open access to agricultural innovation that contributes to research and innovation in agriculture. For example, a policy direction could be that all Institutions inform openly on their websites the experts with their expertise, projects and project outputs in a searchable form. Another could be that the ICAR / DARE mandates as a policy that all research outputs should not only be accessible but appropriately aggregated and amalgamated, such as through tools such as Wikis for effective use by agricultural communities.

At one end we have information poor small holder farmers and other users, at the other end publicly funded generators of agricultural information. Can we show to the World what we can do to share information more equitably and contribute to poverty alleviation? And, how we do it?

We need to discuss what we all can collectively do. We may start with a mandated policy for open access.

Information that farmers will need to generate and provide

Market Related Information

Gooseberries (Amla) in an orchard in the Aravalli Hills of Rajasthan, India
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Information that farmers will need to generate and provide

In my last blog I discussed about information that small farmers and producers in the South needed. I now discuss the information these farmers will now need to generate and provide.

If small farmers and producers want to participate in markets which are rapidly becoming globalized, they will need to maintain information about their farms and farming operations so that they can be audited through Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and food safety standards set within their countries and countries where they may want their products to be traded. This entails that these farmers have a farm management information system. Farmers have to maintain information about their farm history, activities, workers health and welfare, waste and pollution management with recycling and reuse data, environment and conservation data and complaints.

For small holder producers this adds to the cost of their production. There is very little known about the costs to farmers to manage this information. My own guess is that it should be at the minimum around 5 per cent of the total cost of production. I guess this by considering that the farmer would need about 30 minutes to manage the records as required by EUREP GAP standards every day, the cost of transcribing and processing the records into a suitable format for audit and the cost of the audit. This estimate is much less than what a corporate body spends in managing its information for administrative and regulatory purposes. The cost of information may be higher if the farmer produces high value crops destined for export, if he/she cultivates more that one crop, uses genetically modified seeds or organisms or produces for the organic market. For small producers this cost reduces profit significantly. If the overall profit from farming is about 15 percent this cost is one third of the profits. For farmers in the South, where illiteracy is rampant, maintaining this information may need external services for information management and the costs may be even higher. Of course, it can add to employment potential of educated persons in rural areas.

Another type of information that will need to be provided by farmers is for traceability and labelling the product. As food safety standards become more stringent, traceability of the product to the farm rather than the processing plant is required. This would mean that farmers have to ensure that their produce is traceable to their farm. For small holder farmers with small amounts of marketable produce providing information for traceability and labelling will be prohibitively costly and the main reason for their not being able to participate in markets.

For small holder producers of the South, it is increasingly becoming important that they aggregate together to participate in markets. Aggregation will enable them to collectively reduce the cost of information management for participating in markets. This aggregation can be through forming farmer organization to have common production practices, cooperatives, farmer owned companies, contract farming etc. I classify aggregation from a farm information management perspective, as being at the production level such as the whole farming community aggregating their production system around land, a crop or commodity and having a common farm management information system, at the product level where the members of an agricultural community have independent production systems but aggregate at the product level; this means that the individual members maintain their own farm management information systems and aggregation at the processing level where the processor of the agricultural product maintains the farm management information system for labelling purposes. It is apparent that there will be a need for standards for farm management information systems. I see very little being done by agricultural research institutions in the South attempting to develop these information systems that may in the near future be vital for small holder producers they aim to serve.

It is well known from experiences in Soviet Russia and even China that when farming is practiced communally or cooperatively, productivity is seriously affected and the social and economic fabric of rural communities gets distorted in an undesirable way. Are there ways to use ICTs to aggregate small holder farmers virtually without them having to change the sovereignty of ownership of their farms? In my opinion, it is possible through use of appropriate farm management information systems linked to geographic information systems if need be to aggregate small holder producers in an agricultural community virtually. This would not disrupt the economic or social fabric of the community but benefit the whole community in farming that can meet the challenges of a globalized agriculture.

Information that farmers will need to generate and provide

Market Related Information


Gooseberries in an Orchard in the Aravalli Hills of Rajasthan, India
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Information that farmers will need to generate and provide

In my last blog I discussed about information that small farmers and producers in the South needed. I now discuss the information these farmers will now need to generate and provide.

If small farmers and producers want to participate in markets which are rapidly becoming globalized, they will need to maintain information about their farms and farming operations so that they can be audited through Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and food safety standards set within their countries and countries where they may want their products to be traded. This entails that these farmers have a farm management information system. Farmers have to maintain information about their farm history, activities, workers health and welfare, waste and pollution management with recycling and reuse data, environment and conservation data and complaints.

For small holder producers this adds to the cost of their production. There is very little known about the costs to farmers to manage this information. My own guess is that it should be at the minimum around 5 per cent of the total cost of production. I guess this by considering that the farmer would need about 30 minutes to manage the records as required by EUREP GAP standards every day, the cost of transcribing and processing the records into a suitable format for audit and the cost of the audit. This estimate is much less than what a corporate body spends in managing its information for administrative and regulatory purposes. The cost of information may be higher if the farmer produces high value crops destined for export, if he/she cultivates more that one crop, uses genetically modified seeds or organisms or produces for the organic market. For small producers this cost reduces profit significantly. If the overall profit from farming is about 15 percent this cost is one third of the profits. For farmers in the South, where illiteracy is rampant, maintaining this information may need external services for information management and the costs may be even higher. Of course, it can add to employment potential of educated persons in rural areas.

Another type of information that will need to be provided by farmers is for traceability and labeling the product. As food safety standards become more stringent, traceability of the product to the farm rather than the processing plant is required. This would mean that farmers have to ensure that their produce is traceable to their farm. For small holder farmers with small amounts of marketable produce providing information for traceability and labelling will be prohibitively costly and the main reason for their not being able to participate in markets.

For small holder producers of the South, it is increasingly becoming important that they aggregate together to participate in markets. Aggregation will enable them to collectively reduce the cost of information management for participating in markets. This aggregation can be through forming farmer organization to have common production practices, cooperatives, farmer owned companies, contract farming etc. I classify aggregation from a farm information management perspective, as being at the production level such as the whole farming community aggregating their production system around land, a crop or commodity and having a common farm management information system, at the product level where the members of an agricultural community have independent production systems but aggregate at the product level; this means that the individual members maintain their own farm management information systems and aggregation at the processing level where the processor of the agricultural product maintains the farm management information system for labelling purposes. It is apparent that there will be a need for standards for farm management information systems. I see very little being done by agricultural research institutions in the South attempting to develop these information systems that may in the near future be vital for small holder producers they aim to serve.

It is well known from experiences in Soviet Russia and even China that when farming is practiced communally or cooperatively, productivity is seriously affected and the social and economic fabric of rural communities gets distorted in an undesirable way. Are there ways to use ICTs to aggregate small holder farmers virtually without them having to change the sovereignty of ownership of their farms? In my opinion, it is possible through use of appropriate farm management information systems linked to geographic information systems if need be to aggregate small holder producers in an agricultural community virtually. This would not disrupt the economic or social fabric of the community but benefit the whole community in farming that can meet the challenges of a globalized agriculture.

Information that Small Farmers in the South need

Market Related Information

A Date Market in Sanaa' Yemen

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Market related Information: Information that Small Farmers in the South need

Markets do not only enable trade in commodities. They also enable exchange of information about commodities. A perfect market is where there is total symmetry of information flows and equity of access to information for all actors about the marketed commodities. Market failures occur when there is asymmetry of information flows between actors in the market.

In my opinion, inequities in information access and asymmetric information flows related to agriculture have contributed significantly to the current soaring prices in food all over the world. At one hand, economically developing countries have neglected enabling agricultural market related information flows and improving information access for its farmers. At the other end, multinational corporations have huge capacities to monitor and make use of agricultural information for their own benefit. This asymmetry in information access has led to market failures for farmers, especially of the South and speculative trade at huge profits, already evidenced by the stupendous profits reported by Cargill and other multinationals trading in food in their current quarter of 2008.

It is also surprising to me that while a wide variety of causes have been attributed to increases in food prices, no one has pointed out the failure of international and national agricultural and trade agencies in bringing equity in access and greater transparency to agricultural market related information globally and especially farmers and producers of the South.

In this and following blogs, I wish to discuss market related information and how improving access and enabling its use by all involved in market chains can contribute to improved livelihoods of small producers, especially in the South. Whenever market related information issues come up for discussion among ICM managers and experts in agricultural research organizations, the usual contention is that it is not an issue for agricultural research. If the discussion is persisted upon, the focus becomes how to provide market prices to farmers. When I refer to market related information, I do not mean price alone. I mean all the information that is needed by producers and all actors in market chains to make these chains efficient and beneficial to all. For the producers this means what to grow and produce, when to grow, how to grow, where to grow, how to market, when to market, how to harvest and transport and where to get the inputs needed for production etc,. For the various intermediaries in the market chain a wide of information is needed. I illustrate this as a framework in the figure below.

If we follow the agricultural market chain, we can categorize information related to markets as as:

• Production, Productivity and Profit enhancement information needed by the producer
• Commodity Price Information
• Food Quality and Safety Information
• Labeling information

Production, Productivity and Profit Enhancement information

This type of information can be categorized further as:

• Information related to availability and prices of inputs for farming such as seed, fertilizer, pesticide, feed, medicines, equipment and equipment spares, diesel or petrol etc
• Information related to cultivating the crop or commodity such as time of cultivation, seed variety, potential yields, soil type needed, irrigation, pest and disease threats, prevention and control, harvesting, post harvest management etc
• Information related to marketing of the crop such as forecasted price, production forecast in the local area, local processors and marketers etc
• Rules, regulations and standards for cultivation including production quotas, subsidies or taxes, segregation, traceability and identity preservation for labeling requirements etc

From my experience in India, it is important not only to make farm inputs available in time for each phase in farming such as sowing, cultivation and harvesting but also to inform farmers of availability and price and financial arrangements such as for loans or subsidy for a successful harvest. Many a failures in an agricultural season could be attributed to mismanagement of this information. I have also observed cases of deliberate withholding of information to benefit speculators who black market farm inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and diesel during sowing season.

In the context of the South, the management of information related to availability and prices of inputs can be improved if Internet Websites and Cellular telephony are used to provide information and market the inputs. It is possible to make the process of purchasing inputs online if suppliers enter into e-marketing of their supplies and producers can be provided agricultural credit cards for purchase of inputs.

A significant change can occur in agriculture if rural banking in the South can be automated and made online. This banking can provide access to financial credit to farms. Credit is a critical input to market oriented agriculture as practiced by small holders. A major constraint in providing small farmers credit is the high transaction costs involved. By introducing ICTs, this transaction costs can be significantly reduced. With improved Internet and Cellular connectivity, it is not necessary for banks to open their branch offices in rural areas but provide automated teller machines (ATMs) and credit card readers to input providers. It is also possible that the ATMs be used as information kiosks. Similarly, cellular telephony, especially SMS, can also be used for financial transactions and purchase of inputs and access to financial credit.

Many a times the infusion of new agricultural technologies fails to take off in the South because the necessary infrastructure needed to support the use of these new technologies is not developed. A classical example is in Africa, where providing high input responsive seeds without making necessary arrangement to provide inputs like fertilizers have resulted in failures to yield benefits from the use of new seed technology. The use of ICTs can contribute significantly to improving the infrastructure needed for input supply.

As agriculture becomes market oriented, producers need information on consumer preferences to make decisions about what they would cultivate; linking consumer preferences information to farm input information becomes vital so as to make production profitable for producers. This information flows from consumers to producers through market intermediaries in the opposite direction to the flow of agricultural commodities from the farm to the consumer. When the markets for farmers are not local but national and global the flow of this information becomes more complex. It becomes imperative that market related information flows become organized and structured at the national and global levels. For producers in the South, this information flows through market actors across the chain. The process is slow. Further most market chains in the South are long with more than 7-8 intermediaries in the chain. This further slows down flow of information. In developed countries where agriculture is better organized, the private sector especially the Supermarkets and large processors, the Government and Farmer/Producer organizations as also marketing organizations all play a role in providing consumer related information to producers. Such structures do not exist for producers in the South. In some countries, commodity marketing boards have been setup but their role, from my experience in India, in providing relevant and useful information to producers have been limited. In my opinion, marketing boards should invest in providing this type of information along with other support they provide to producers. I also believe that farmer organizations are central and key to providing farmers with information on production, productivity and profit. I shall come to how information management to markets evolve with increasing capacities to produce and market of small holder producers.

As stated in a previous blog, farmers in the South need a basket of options as information for their farming. There are several ways in which this information is currently provided. In my opinion, the best way to provide this information is through farm models linked to real time, online databases. The farmer can input his farms details and the model, using weather and market forecasts, crop characteristics, inputs details etc can provide options to the farmer what his options are and what choices he/she can make. While large scale farmers in the North have access to these new precision farming technologies, small farmers in the South, who can benefit the most from this approach, are unfortunately left out as local agricultural research institutions do not take up research in developing suitable models and systems to implement precision farming technologies.

An emerging issue for small holder farmers for participating in markets is also about traceability and labeling of their produce. For the small producer, the cost of labeling products can be exorbitant and can eat away in the profits. This prevents small holders participate in markets. There is an urgent need to look at how costs of labeling for small holders can be reduced. There are technological solutions available such through use of radio frequency identification devices, aggregation at production and product level using ICTs etc. This is another area that has not really been researched upon.

In most market information systems, primary producers only get bulk market prices such as for a ton of produce. For small producers this information is useless. In case of vegetables and fruits, there is a wide variation of prices on day to day basis and the producer loses out as there are few means to verify the prices in remote locations. Here again, cellular telephony can contribute significantly to providing relevant market information.

The need for Institutional Innovation in Agricultural Extension and Education

Infusing new information and knowledge in agricultural systems:

A small farmer ploughing his field in Rajasthan, India

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The need for Institutional Innovation in Agricultural Extension and Education

In my previous blog I referred to the need for change and innovation in agricultural education and extension organizations and Institutes if they are to continue to contribute to infuse information and knowledge meaningfully in agricultural systems.

Apparently conventional extension and education systems are already obsolete or will become so in the way they are contributing to and enabling information flows for farming and agricultural development.

My reasons for this contention are:

First of all the users of agricultural information are now not only farmers as these conventional systems were designed to target but now include a wide array of actors in agricultural production chains.

Second, the needs of information of these users have changed. The users need a broad spectrum of information related to agriculture to make decisions and they need it just in time and not as pre-planned packages that the conventional extension systems are designed to produce and deliver.

Third, the flow of information has changed. There are now pluralistic flows of information from several sources, many of them competing with each other in the information they provide and not uni-directional linear flows from research to extension agent to farmer.

Fourth, users can access information from a multiple of information channels that provide information through a wide range of media and not only face to face meetings and printed material and a single source, the extension agent.

Fifth, in many cases, users are both producers and consumers of information and new channels are needed for this duplex communication.

Sixth, the role of extension agents who at one time conveyed information as a package has changed. They are now to act as information and knowledge intermediaries who guide users to information and facilitate the user’s decision making through their knowledge. This requires new skills and change in educational systems that provide skills to extension agents.

Finally, users have replaced Agricultural Universities and Research Institutes as being centres and being in control of agricultural information systems. Universities and Research Institutes generated new information and trained extension agents to convey it to farmers. Because of this they were at the centre and in control of conventional agricultural extension systems. Now these Institutions are only one of the many actors which include non government organizations, farmer organizations, agribusiness and trade organizations, the private sector especially farm input providers, processors, transporters and market intermediaries, consumer organizations and individuals with interests in agriculture who are sources of and provide information actively.

Agricultural Universities and Research Institutes now face active competition in their traditional role as generators and disseminators of agricultural information from other actors and this competition is increasingly becoming stiffer. To avoid being rendered irrelevant, these Institutions have to change to match and better the competition in providing information to agricultural communities for agricultural development.

Extension and education systems have to innovate their Institutional frameworks rapidly if they wish to significantly contribute to agricultural information flows and development. A major problem is in their vision and goals. The vision of these Institutions is primarily towards generation of agricultural graduates who would contribute to agricultural development when they work in the field as extension agents or research. Contributing directly to agricultural development through sharing information, knowledge and new skills is not the main goal for these Universities. The Universities are thus designed to provide on-campus, face-to-face education that is structured around static curricula and syllabi, text books and evaluation through examinations. The vision and goals of these Universities have to change if they are to contribute to learning for agricultural communities and not only produce agricultural graduates. These Universities have to become dual mode, offering both formal and informal, on and off campus learning through structured (with set curricula and syllabi) and unstructured programs. They have to cater to a wide range of learners from young farmers to students who will be researchers.

Another major issue in envisioning is the overt focus of agricultural universities on farming rather than on agribusiness. For example, in India, agriculture since late 1990s has moved towards agribusiness and has greater linkages with markets. Agriculture Universities have not been able to envision themselves towards this trend and change themselves to be in tune with the transformation of agriculture in the country. I believe that the rest of the developing world is also going through a similar experience.

Significant re-engineering is required in the design of agricultural universities to become dual mode. These Universities need to envision afresh and set new goals such as to contribute to human capacity for national agriculture and agribusiness development. This human capacity is not only graduates with degrees but also vocational training for youth to be farmers capable of participating in agribusiness and supporting the vast array of actors in agricultural production and value addition chains. These Universities will need to build close links with agribusiness through contributing to their innovation. I do not yet see these concepts and ideas being implemented in Agricultural Universities of the South.

To generate information and knowledge intermediaries who work with agricultural communities, as many of their graduates will fill this role, a significant change will also be required in their curricula, syllabi and skills base especially of the teachers. There will be a need to reformulate linkages between research, education and extension in the Universities and how they contribute to innovation for agricultural development.

In many countries, Agricultural Universities are under Education Ministries. This cuts them off from real agricultural issues. These countries therefore require significant changes in their policies and structures to bring agricultural education in line with the needs of their agriculture and its development.

A Generic Framework to enable ICT use for Agricultural Development

Infusing new information and knowledge in agricultural systems:

A Generic Framework to enable ICT use for Agricultural Development

An experimental cactii field for livestock fodder in Oman

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I illustrate the generic framework of agricultural information systems below.

Each source of agricultural information, the agricultural information organization, has one or more platforms (telephone help desk, web site, e-discussion list) from where it communicates information to users. An information platform is linked to the user community through an information “bus” made up of the physical connection, channel and medium, through which the information travels. This physical link may be a telephone line, cellular network or the wireless Internet connection. The channel may be a help desk, a web site or a radio station. Communication may be through various channels available on the platform using one or more media (text, audio, photography, video, multi-media which may be analogical or digital). The information channel may have different cardinality such as being one to one (Unicasting) or one to many (multicasting, broadcasting). Some platforms use channels that offer many to many communications, for example, electronic discussion forums, teleconferences and video conferences. This is very useful for building social networks that are needed to share information and knowledge for innovation. The communication may be synchronous, communicating with the user simultaneously (such as through a telephone call) through a duplex channel or asynchronous (such as through e-mail). The user community may access information collectively or individually and, in some cases, through one or more information intermediaries. The role of intermediaries, as already indicated is to guide users to the relevant information and facilitate the user to make appropriate decisions.

Significant institutional innovations are needed for facilitating agricultural information access, sharing and exchange using new ICTs through the new, emerging framework of agricultural information systems. For the information organizations (those whose main output is information) that are the source of information, the first innovation is in its vision. Information is an intangible item. This makes designing appropriate processes for its most effective flow and measuring outputs from these processes difficult and complex. Since the information processes in organization are difficult and complex, the organizational structures needed for efficient information processes are equally difficult to design. In recent years, a lot of thought has gone into designing appropriate structures for information organizations. The best information organization is one where there is no hierarchy and is driven by common values of its members.

I illustrate some of the interventions needed for ICTs to be appropriately inducted and used for agricultural information systems in the illustration below. This is in addition to the need for new visions and goals for all agricultural information organizations.

See a video where I explain this model and what in my opinion needs to be done:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?warkmekmjto

This video is by Petr Kosina. I thank Petr for the effort.

ICTs transforming Agricultural Extension and Education

Infusing new information and knowledge in agricultural systems:

ICTs transforming Agricultural Extension and Education

Goats at a Livestock Research Station in Oman

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Agricultural extension and education was significantly transformed with the introduction of radio broadcasts aimed at rural communities in North America and Europe. During the 1950’s, several Asian countries experimented with radio for rural development. In India a network of medium wave (MW) stations for radio broadcasts were setup to cover almost the entire country. There were issues related to hardware (both for broadcast and reception including power supply for radio receivers), software especially content and its format, skills and connectivity. In India, capacity for generating radio programs was developed at Agricultural Universities and Research Institutes. The All India Radio’s network was linked to these Institutions. I, as an undergraduate student at an Indian agricultural university during my extension course, was trained to produce radio programs. The use of FM (Frequency Modulated) radio in rural areas as “Community” radio has significant value. In India, due to Government policies, this medium has been slow to be used for agricultural extension but is expected to pick up when the use of community radio is opened up for rural areas.

The introduction of television for agricultural extension was also attempted in several countries. In India, there were some remarkable firsts, including the use of television for farm related broadcasts around Delhi. The use of satellites to broadcast television programs across the country and especially to rural areas for agricultural development was also a significant innovation tried in India. The introduction of television also had issues similar related to hardware, software, skills, connectivity and content to that when radio broadcasting for agricultural extension was introduced. However, due to costs, in India, TV program generation was not really linked to agricultural universities and research institutes. This may have been one of the major reasons why TV did not really succeed as much as the radio had for agricultural extension. In theory TV would have had a much larger impact that radio. Unlike radio, lack of electricity in villages in India, lack of TV broadcast coverage in rural areas, a focus on TV for entertainment rather than education and cumbersome production technology were major constraints in the 1980s in India. By the time satellite linked cable TVs. low cost receivers and digital technology, especially cameras, arrived the TV had lost out as a major medium for agricultural extension. In the last five years, the private sector TV has reinvented the use of TV as an agricultural extension tool. In India, the Eenadu Group with their ETV Channel has used digital cameras and a business model of advertisements for farm inputs and rural retail to produce and sustain farm related broadcasts commercially. There still remains a significant potential for local cable based TV programming for rural areas which includes agricultural extension and education.

Computers, digital media such as CD-ROMs and DVDs, digital cameras and camcorders, CD and DVD players also have a significant potential for use in agricultural extension and education. They can be used to target specific local content economically. For example, in Junagadh District of Gujarat, India, a student from a University I used to teach in experimented, as a summer project, the use of CD-ROM based audio content that was a mix of education and entertainment. He generated programmes using a desk top computer with an MP3 recorder and editing software. He provided these CD-ROMs for use by tea-shops at bus stands. He had wanted to link up Tea Shop owners through cell phones with rural service providers and make these Tea shops information hubs for the village. Alas, it was only a summer project and he could not test all his innovative ideas. As I learn, in my opinion, these ICTs have not really been used to full potential, in spite of successful pilots, for agricultural extension and education. The major constraint I believe has been the lack of innovative approaches and the necessary Institutional support needed to generate content.

The Internet and Cellular Telephony as new ICTs have significant potential to be used for agricultural extension and education. At the moment the constraints of hardware, software, skills, connectivity and content, similar to problems faced with the use of radio and television, hamper the use of these new ICTs. However, lost cost computing devices and cell phones, wireless, especially WiMAX, Internet connectivity and WAP (Wireless access protocol) through 3G and 4G technologies will contribute significantly to improving access to information in rural areas. The major constraint will be relevant and useful content.

The use of ICTs, “old” (Radio, Television) and “new” (Computers, digital media, Internet and Cellular telephony) are transforming agricultural extension and education across the world. The old technologies were for broadcasting information and useful for transfer of technology in uniform packages as envisaged for the “green” revolution.

In the new agriculture emerging globally, farmers, especially small holder producers (which include homestead farming, pastoralists, fisher folk and forest dwellers), need a basket of options for their livelihoods. They need information on what to grow, how to grow, when to grow, when to harvest, how to market, what are weather and market forecasts and a host of other information to make farming decisions. They want this information just in time when they need it. The information model now no longer remains a linear model with information flowing from researchers to farmers through extension agents.

There is a new networked model emerging with pluralistic information flows using a wide variety of media, individually and as mixed (video on cell phone, radio through Internet). The channels are not only face to face contacts supplemented with pamphlets, brochures and similar documents but help lines and question and answer services that use cellular telephony with SMS and MMS, the Web and e-mail with audio and video. It is apparent that “new” ICTs will be more used by their unique capabilities to multicast and unicast agricultural information to agricultural communities and groups within the community or individual users respectively.

In my opinion, new ICTs will provide access to a wide variety of information to agricultural communities in new formats such as alerts e.g. for input availability, market prices and weather, answers to questions, “how-tos”, wikis, blogs, results from crop and farm models, diagnostics using expert systems, maps etc. Individual and agricultural communities will also generate and contribute data and information through datasets related to production and marketable produce, answers to queries, blogs etc.

New organizations and Institutions will emerge to manage these information flows. These will include farmer organizations, trade associations, NGOs, consumer organizations, financial institutions etc. The role of traditions organizations in agricultural extension and Institutions will change significantly. They may become organizations that add value to agricultural information flows through collecting, collating, processing and disseminating information using new ICTs as also producing information and knowledge intermediaries that add value in agricultural production chains. These Institutions will need to innovate significantly and rapidly as soon as possible to be useful to agricultural communities.