Author: Susan Thomas

Summary of the seminar on the Role of Technology and Data Science in Accelerating Climate Smart Agriculture Outcomes

Posted on by Susan Thomas

 

Digital Green, in collaboration with JEEViKA and RySS, organized a seminar on the “Role of Technology and Data Science in Accelerating Climate Smart Agriculture Outcomes” on 5th August 2021. This event brought together diverse stakeholders, including thought leaders, experts, donors, policymakers, and practitioners to discuss, learn, share and explore opportunities for investing in technology and science-based solutions to scale and deepen the impact of climate-smart agriculture. 

Krishnan Pallassana, Country Director – India for Digital Green, said that the seminar has highlighted the important and catalytic role that technology and data science can play in empowering farmers to strengthen resilience, improve sustainable production and become active partners in the development process. He further added that the ideas and concrete suggestions that have come out of this impactful event can vitalise the sector and Digital Green is committed to work with others to provide best possible support to farmers.

The speakers and panelists in the seminar cautioned that the threat of global warming and climate change to agriculture is real and severe, affecting food systems locally and globally. On one hand farmers are one of the most at-risk groups vulnerable to climate change, and on the other agriculture is a major contributor to the climate crisis generating close to one-fifth of the total greenhouse gas emissions. There is an urgent need to take immediate action in mitigating this issue by investing in climate smart agriculture.  A coordinated action to scale climate smart agriculture will go a long way in ensuring sustainable production, resilience among small scale farmers and contribute to food and nutrition security.

To address these critical issues Digital Green and JEEViKA are partnering to develop a ‘Measurement, Reporting, & Verification (MRV) in Climate Smart Agriculture’ model for small scale producers. Ashu Sikri , Senior Advisor at Digital Green, presented this model, which is an exciting low-cost, scalable farmer-centric technology solution to capture climate-related data, and focuses on production practices that deliver win-win outcomes on economic, environmental, nutrition, and social domains.

 

The presentation was followed by a keynote address delivered by Shri Abhishek Singh, IAS, CEO, Digital India Corporation, on the significance of Ag-tech and Data Science in achieving India’s SDGs and Climate Action plan. He discussed the Government of India’s goals and plans in advancing digital technology and its relevance to the farming community. “Technology makes information accessible to farmers.” Mr Singh emphasized that the easy exchange of information and creating a repository of knowledge on best practices accessible to each farmer in the country is imperative to improve farmer production, resilience and income. 

JEEViKA in Bihar and RySS in Andhra Pradesh are two such organizations who have been creating a knowledge repository for farmers in partnership with Digital Green. They have been investing in promoting climate-smart, sustainable livelihoods for rural farmers through varied approaches, and have achieved scale and impact over the years. In an insightful spotlight discussion, Rikin Gandhi,  Executive Director, Digital Green, was in conversation with T Vijay Kumar, IAS (Rtd), Executive Vice Chairman, RySS, Balamurugan D, IAS, CEO, JEEViKA, and Dr Purvi Mehta, Asia Lead (Agriculture), BMGF India. They discussed how technology and data science helps in accelerating the integrated approach to sustainable development by putting farmers and farmer controlled data at the centre of climate-smart actions. 

T Vijay Kumar IAS put emphasis on the behavioural change in farmers and how digital technology plays an integral role in capacitating the human connection between farmers, stating that “we are still looking at digital technology as an extractive technology, but the farmer is not benefitting from it. Technology should empower farmers.” He also added the urgency of addressing the climate crisis – “we are in a very serious climate crisis, and we have no time to lose. We have to put farmers at the centre of finding rapid scalable solutions.” Balamurugan D, IAS echoed this and shared stories from the field, speaking about the power of community and information and its role in getting access to information to empower farmers – “community institutions, and community resource persons play a very important role in getting access to technology. There is no need for each and every person to have a mobile phone to get access to knowledge and information.” Dr Purvi Mehta highlighted the innate inequalities – over 70% of climate mitigation strategies are focused on problem identification not solving, and only 2% of climate financing impacts smallholder farmers. She added that farmers have always had their own mitigation strategies through crop diversification, and the value of bringing these lessons from the ground to mainstream discussions in order to prioritize farmer-centric information dissemination.

An important and unique feature of this seminar was the participant-led discussions to draw critical thoughts and ideas from more than 50 delegates who were invited to the seminar. Participants were divided into three working groups. Working group on Agtech and data-driven solutions to mainstream climate-smart agriculture was facilitated by Stewart Collis of Gates Foundation; working group on Enabling ecosystem for technology and data solutions to mainstream climate-smart agriculture was facilitated by Hisham Mundol of Environmental Defense Fund and the working group on Engendering technology for climate smart agriculture was facilitated by Tinni Sawhney of Aga Khan Foundation. Key highlights included: (1) Enabling digital capacities of community structures like SHGs and FPOs to address the needs of women and other marginalized groups, and identifying champion farmers to be at the forefront of advocacy. (2) On-ground data from farmers can inform models and policies on climate-smart agriculture. Moreover, valuation of data is important so that it can incentivize farmers to collect and share their data. (3) Enabling digital capacities of community structures like SHGs and FPOs to address the needs of women and other marginalized groups; and (4) To address a crisis as complex as climate change, technological and data-driven solutions have to be simple but not simplistic. Discussions around climate smart agriculture and generating social capital have to take into account farmer incomes, social development indicators such as nutrition, as well as the climate benefits.

Ending on a powerful note was the closing keynote by J Satyanarayana, IAS (Rtd), Chief Advisor, C4IR-WEF. The Government of India has been formulating ambitious plans to build a strong data-centric approach to agriculture including initiatives like IDEA and AgriStack that can potentially transform the way AgData is managed and applied to advance agriculture productivity. J Satyanarayana shared his vision for how the AgData centric transformation could impact on-ground initiatives on climate smart agriculture around reducing emissions and building resilience. Though there have been emerging concerns on issues like data privacy and consent, J Satyanarayana highlighted the centrality of farmers owning and controlling their own data as a key principle in data transformation in the country. There is an urgent need now to work on a structure that protects the interests of the farmers. 

This event was a coming together of the extended Digital Green community. As Rikin Gandhi, Executive Director of Digital Green aptly put it – “we need to think about how technology can enable farmer voice and agency, not extract from them” so that farmers are at the focal point of being able to leverage digital technologies for their own and to be able to connect with their own networks.

This is just a glimpse to the incredible insights and learnings that came out of the seminar. To watch the full recording, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WvsrTjAQUY or watch below. 

The Role of Technology & Data Science in Climate Smart Agriculture

Posted on by Susan Thomas

The threat of global warming and climate change to agriculture is real and severe, affecting food systems locally and globally. Among the hundreds of millions who are vulnerable to the impact of climate change, an estimated 120 Million farmers are perhaps one of the most at-risk groups. On the other hand, agriculture is also a major contributor to the climate crisis generating close to one-fifth of the total greenhouse gas emissions.

The need of the hour is for governments, businesses, philanthropies, and civil society to take immediate action in mitigating this issue by investing in climate-smart agriculture.

Digital Green, in collaboration with Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society, and RySS, is bringing together diverse stakeholders in the sector – thought leaders, experts, donors, practitioners, and policymakers – for a seminar on “The Role of Technology & Data Science in Climate Smart Agriculture.” This will be a platform to deliberate, share, and explore opportunities for collective action in data and technology-led solutions to drive scale and deepen the impact of climate smart agriculture.

Please join us on Thursday, 5th August, from 7:00-8:30 PM (IST) on our Youtube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChuaX_HQE7w

Catalyzing the Data Sharing Ecosystem – Introducing FarmStack

Posted on by Susan Thomas

For the past fifteen years Digital Green has been collaborating with government extension agencies to digitally transform their services for smallholder farmers. Through our extension video approach we’ve reached over 2.3 million farmers and over 46,000 government extension workers. Along the way our work has generated a lot of data, and we’ve always used that data to improve our work, help our farmers, and expand our business. A few years back, we started to ask ourselves some key questions — How do we get the data that’s helping us back into the hands of farmers and organizations so it can help them too? How many other organizations like ours are holding data with untapped potential? And finally, how can we catalyze a data sharing ecosystem to put the potential of that data to work for farmers? This thought led us to understand that the way forward was to develop a decentralized data sharing protocol to foster coordination across the ag ecosystem while protecting privacy, security, and control over how data is used. We call this protocol FarmStack. 

FarmStack is an open-source protocol which powers the secure transfer of data. 

Today we’re announcing the release of FarmStack, an open-source protocol which powers the secure transfer of data. FarmStack enables secure and controlled exchange of data which can inform tailored solutions for farmers, greatly reduce costs for organizations, and expand the reach of existing tools. When organizations want to unlock new services and solutions by sharing and combining data they need to be confident that personal identifiable data, proprietary information, or other sensitivities are not exposed or used inappropriately. When farmers give consent to use their data, they want to be confident that it will be used only for the purposes they have given permission for and not shared with other parties without their knowledge. FarmStack enables these solutions. 

Watch this video for a preview of our managed connector features

With significant investments from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, we’ve developed FarmStack as a free and open-source solution to enable peer to peer data sharing with customizable and enforceable data protections via a locally hosted and user friendly interface. Because FarmStack is a protocol, it can be connected with existing applications and platforms and easily integrated into an organization’s existing technology stack.

This release of FarmStack is the first milestone in a broader vision of catalyzing the data sharing ecosystem. Future releases will include managed connectors, data discovery and visualization tools, and will be accompanied by a growing community of FarmStack users who are taking our open source code and building their own custom solutions on top of it. We invite you to join the FarmStack community today and work with us to build a more open, confident, and productive data sharing ecosystem. For more information start here.

Farming the Future: Covid19 and beyond

Posted on by Susan Thomas

“I often ask myself what will happen if I stopped working? When the floods came, I had to be in my field to drain the waters. When the pandemic came, I had to be there to take care of my crop and fend for my family. Droughts, floods or pandemics, we don’t quit. We cannot quit. If I quit, we have to forsake our income and there won’t be food at home. My neighbors won’t be able to work on my farm and they will lose their income. We will lose the vegetables that we grow that can feed many families. Whatever may happen to the world, we farmers can’t and don’t quit even for a day.”

These are words from Koyu, a 67-year-old farmer from my own village in Kerala who grows paddy and vegetables in his 4 acres of land. I was speaking to him over the phone. There was both anger and anguish in his words.

“You know,” he continued, “everyone takes us for granted. When everything shut down… transport, railways, postal services, banks, markets and offices including those of the government, we were the only ones working. Without any complaint or expectation. We continued to produce, we toiled. When we produce less, we earn less. When we produce more, even then we earn less.” Koyu did not mince his words while sharing his frustration.

Refer to the full report for further details.

When I had this conversation with Koyu a few weeks ago, at Digital Green we were speaking to hundreds of farmers in various states of India where we work in. As an organization working with and for small-scale farmers, it was important for us to understand how they are coping with the pandemic and associated uncertainties. We designed the survey in a way that would help us and our partners to understand specific issues faced by the farmers so that we can help them overcome the situation and recover faster. The survey report is available here.

Nearly one-third of the small-scale farmers we interviewed were afraid of contracting the Coronavirus. There is widespread fear and anxiety, among both men and women, on their ability to continue production and find a market for their produce. Farmers have indeed become more vulnerable due to the pandemic. However, nearly all of them said they will grow crops for the Kharif season. Farmers are not letting the calamity deter their intent or morale.

For a society that is reeling under multiple waves of a never-seen-before humanitarian crisis that has crippled our lives, society and economy, the path to recovery can be hard and arduous. Our farmers are already playing a crucial role in that path to recovery. They are ensuring productivity, generating employment, feeding our people and most importantly regenerating the rural economy. For the country as a whole, from policymakers to practitioners, from the civil society to the common people, helping farmers at this hour means helping the economy to recover faster and build back better.

While there are many concerns the survey brought to light and require immediate attention, the survey findings also point towards some important future considerations. Of these, there are three that I want to highlight, so that future pandemics, calamities, shocks and stressors do not derail our decades of development investment.

#Power2choose: Reimagining farmers’ advisories

Let us not treat farmers are mere recipients of aid and subsidies who are supposed to till and toil for society. Time has come to accord them the importance they deserve as active partners and participants in the development process. Let us empathize with farmers and bank upon their immense wisdom, patience and resilience. To help achieve that, farmers need timely and efficient access to information to produce better, market better and claim reasonable realization for their efforts. Digital technology is that opportunity to empower farmers with choices to make informed decisions. Digital tools can help them access specific information that they want – what, when and how. Let them decide. Let them choose.

#markets4farmers: Reimagining markets

Today, the investment our government has made towards Digital India is slowly bearing fruits. More villages are getting connected to networks. Mobile telephony has reached every nook and corner of the country. Our data costs are among the lowest in the world. Smartphone usage is rising rapidly. Smartphones, data and digital tools can combine to bring about a radical transformation to markets. Digital connectivity can create hyperlocal market loops, connecting local producers and local consumers. Popular applications like WhatsApp and Telegram can help farmers build digital storefronts and transact with local consumers. Let digital technology build a network of farmers and farmer’s groups across the cast expanse of India. Let technology adapt to the needs of farmers than asking farmers to adapt to the technology. Let millions of interconnected farm enterprises bloom.

#FarmerFirst: Reimagining data

We have been taking our farmers for granted. They have historically lacked access to technology and information and in the modern data-driven agri-ecosystem, they don’t even understand that their own data is one of their biggest assets. Many kept mining their data while farmers also freely shared their data with many. Privacy, trust, confidentiality and security has a very different meaning in their social context and relations. The time has come for us to make them aware of the value of their data and help them make informed decisions. While global and national efforts to integrate and share data across platforms are a welcome move and in the right direction, let the first and most important guiding principle be to put farmers at the center or at the apex of such initiatives. Efforts to streamline and make data efficient will not bear desired results if it is not primarily helping farmers to improve their lives and livelihoods.  Help farmers discover the primacy of their own data. Let Farmers be First.

A Transformative Grant to Empower the Voices of Women Farmers

Posted on by Susan Thomas

Digital Green is delighted to share that we received a $15 million unrestricted grant from MacKenzie Scott. It goes without saying, but this is an extremely generous gift that will be exceptionally transformational for Digital Green and the small-scale growers, especially women, that we serve. We are also humbled to be among this group of 286 organizations working on “empowering voices the world needs to hear.”

Since 2008, Digital Green has improved the lives of more than 2.3 million farmers, more than 75% women, in rural communities across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, with digital solutions to enhance climate smart agriculture and nutrition practices. In partnership with local government and other grassroots-level organizations, Digital Green builds the agency of women farmers, in particular, through access to markets and protecting their data interests. With this gift, Digital Green will continue innovating and learning, allowing us to test new ideas and scale our collaborations to reach more farmers globally, as well as strengthen our internal systems.

“This gift is an exciting recognition of our work and mission to empower smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the power of technology and grassroots-level partnerships. It gives us an opportunity to amplify the voices of small-scale farmers around the world,” said Rikin Gandhi, Digital Green’s Executive Director.

Kentaro Toyama, chair of Digital Green’s board, W.K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan School of Information and a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, said, “We recognize that not all deserving organizations were similarly awarded and that we will do what we can to make the best use of these funds. In the process, we will also help other philanthropists recognize the value of Ms. Scott’s model of giving.”

To learn more about Ms. Scott’s motivation for investing in Digital Green and many other impressive organizations, please see this announcement: https://mackenzie-scott.medium.com/seeding-by-ceding-ea6de642bf.

Analysis of Digital Agriculture Extension and Advisory Services in Niger: Conclusions and Recommendations

Posted on by Susan Thomas

The Feed the Future Developing Local Extension Capacity (DLEC) project and the Sustainable Opportunities for Increasing Livelihoods with Soils (SOILS) Consortium undertook a study to analyze the digital agricultural extension and advisory services (EAS) in Niger. The study provides data, insights, and recommendations on digital EAS platforms and services to support the SOILS Consortium in the development of a technology park in Niger. The technology park will function as an agricultural information and training center to accelerate dissemination and scaling efforts and provide training to farmers and other agricultural value chain actors. 

The analysis of the digital agricultural EAS in Niger uses the framework developed by Heike Baumüller and Benjamin K. Addom, which uses four pillars to explain digitalization for agriculture: (1) digital agricultural innovations, (2) big data and analytics, (3) business development services, and (4) the enabling environment. 

The study concludes: 

  1. The limited ability of extension agents to reach farmers, compounded by the restrictions on mass gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the limited coordination and collaboration among EAS providers, have reduced the potential benefits of traditional EAS in Niger. 
  2. Digital EAS could be a game changer for smallholder farmers and other actors to access quality EAS from the comfort of their homes or workplaces. 
  3. Niger has a limited but gradually advancing enabling environment and agricultural data infrastructure to support digital agriculture. There are quality digital platforms which are accessible and effective in providing or supporting quality EAS that largely meet the needs of farmers and other actors across the country. 
  4. Digital agricultural extension activities appear to be driven by donors and international development partners which do not guarantee the sustainability of the digital EAS platforms. 

The study recommends: 

  1. There should be active coordination of EAS providers to avoid duplication, enhance synergy and complementarity necessary to serve the diversified needs of farmers. 
  2. There should be continuous capacity building to facilitators and moderators, as well as farmers, due to the low digital literacy in Niger. 
  3. Development of a national farmer digital identity database should be a priority of the state and relevant private actors, using the databases of the National Network of Chambers of Agriculture (RECA), peasant organizations, and other organizations as a starting point. 
  4. The National Agricultural Advisory System (SNCA) should take a lead in exploring sustainable and innovative financing mechanisms for agricultural extension that minimize the dependence on donor funding. 

Read and/or download the full study here. 

Covid-19 resurgence in India: Supporting our team during this crisis

Posted on by Susan Thomas

The resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic in India has affected more than 23 million people in the country, bringing the healthcare system into disarray.  Digital Green staff in India are under immense stress by witnessing what is happening in the country, to their family and friends, and from the struggles to find medicines, hospital beds, oxygen, and medical care during this resurgence. Many of our staff have been directly affected by this Covid-19 wave, with some colleagues getting sick and others, sadly, losing loved ones. We grieve with our staff during these difficult times. 

We all stand united and in solidarity with those who are affected and as an organization, trying to do our best within our means and resources to support each other. Digital Green has updated its Covid-19 organizational response developed last year and  taken additional steps to continue to support our staff during this resurgence of Covid-19. Maintaining the physical, mental and emotional well-being of our team members is our priority.  

Staying connected

We formed a Covid Care Group to support staff who are affected by the pandemic. The group includes staff who have recovered from Covid-19, sharing their personal experiences and motivating those who are affected. Supervisors are in frequent contact with their staff and checking on their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. We have created a WhatsApp group for all India staff in order to quickly share information and remain closely connected as a team. Our leadership continues providing regular advisories and guidelines to staff and meets weekly to coordinate efforts and make informed decisions for the health and safety of staff. 

Maintaining staff welfare

To recover from anxiety and stress of the pandemic, Friday afternoons have been set aside for India team members to meet virtually to engage in fun and recreational activities. We hope this will maintain and build morale and togetherness in these difficult times. In addition, the Covid Care Group has been actively helping staff, providing anything from cooked meals to moral support. Supervisors are also encouraging staff to take days off to ensure mental and emotional recovery and well-being.

Helping staff cope with the pandemic 

At the beginning of the pandemic, our staff had to make special arrangements to work efficiently from home and thus Digital Green started providing a work from home allowance to meet such costs, which we continue to provide. Last year, Digital Green created a Covid-19 leave policy to provide additional paid leave to our staff, who are either directly affected or become caregivers to loved ones. As vaccine rollouts take place globally, the Covid-19 leave policy has been updated to include taking time off to get the vaccine or recover from effects of the vaccine. To access medical services and support more efficiently, the Covid Care Group developed a database with information and contacts for medical support and services around India. Digital Green also enlisted qualified medical practitioners who are on call to provide medical advice and counseling to our team members and their family members. To ease the burden on our staff, these medical professionals are available to take appointments virtually and are paid directly by Digital Green. Lastly, a Covid Care Fund has been established to support staff with medical expenses not covered by insurance. 

We welcome your ideas and suggestions to continue supporting our staff throughout this crisis. Email us at covid19@digitalgreen.org. Stay safe! 

Improving maternal and child nutrition through participatory video, nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions, and women’s groups: Evidence from a peer-reviewed study

Posted on by Susan Thomas

Digital Green is pleased to share that The Lancet Planetary Health published a peer-reviewed study about Digital Green’s Upscaling Participatory Action and Videos for Agriculture and Nutrition (UPAVAN) project in Odisha, India. UPAVAN was designed as a four-arm cluster randomized control trial (RCT) assessing the nutrition and agricultural impact and cost-effectiveness of three types of interventions compared with a control arm. This is the first RCT to evaluate the effects of nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions on maternal and child nutrition in rural Odisha, India.

Why conduct an RCT? Undernutrition in women has adverse pregnancy outcomes; in children, undernutrition impairs physical and cognitive development. In India, 21% of children are wasted and a quarter of women are underweight. Over a half of Indians depend on subsistence farming. Therefore, understanding the effects of integrating nutrition into agricultural programs could support the fight against undernutrition and help meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2 – End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

Study design. Our team conducted a parallel, four-arm, observer-blind, cluster RCT in the Keonjhar district of Odisha. Clusters of villages were either assigned a control group or an intervention group consisting of fortnightly women’s groups’ meetings and household visits over 32 months using one of the following approaches: (1) nutrition-sensitive agriculture videos, (2) nutrition-sensitive agriculture and nutrition-specific videos, or (3) nutrition-sensitive agriculture videos and a nutrition-specific participatory learning and action cycle meetings and videos. The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine led the research activities along with University College London’s Institute for Global Health and DCOR Consulting. John Snow Research and Training Institute led formative research and built the technical capacity of partners. Voluntary Association for Rural Reconstruction and Appropriate Technology conducted field implementation, while Ekjut was responsible for the participatory learning and action activities. Digital Green coordinated all UPAVAN activities and designed the participatory video approach.

Watch the full video here.

 

 

Key findings of the RCT. The results of the RCT show that a combination of nutrition-sensitive agriculture videos, nutrition-specific videos, and participatory learning and action cycle meetings led to improvements in maternal and child diet quality, compared against the control group. These results suggest that making agriculture interventions nutrition-sensitive can improve diets. Furthermore, the participatory components of the approach could accelerate nutrition-sensitive agriculture intervention improvements in diet quality. The RCT suggests that the participatory nature of interventions may have created an enabling environment for women to adopt new dietary practices through peer support, building women’s confidence, problem-solving, and collective action.

In terms of cost-effectiveness, the RCT reveals that the cost to implement this approach is lower compared to other nutrition or health interventions with an agriculture component, such as community or homestead food production and biofortification.

 

 

Acknowledgments. Digital Green would like to thank the funders and all the partners who worked on this study. This study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UK Aid from the UK Government, with substantial co-funding from the USAID-funded project Digital Integration to Scale Gender-Sensitive Nutrition Social and Behavior Change Communication. We are extremely grateful to the women and children who participated in this study.

Gender Gaps and Women’s History: Reflections on Women Leading the Way

Posted on by Susan Thomas

On March 8, the world commemorated International Women’s Day and in the United States, we celebrate Women’s History Month during all of March, bringing a chance to reflect on women’s leadership and achievements throughout history.

At Digital Green, we leverage the power of grassroots partnerships and technology to support farmers and their families as they transform their lives. Digital Green makes sure our work contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; as a result, more than 75% of farmers reached by our work are women. 

Digital Green takes inspiration from women as we press forward to achieve gender equality and close gender gaps in digital literacy and access, agricultural productivity, nutrition and health, and access to extension and other services. 

Before we highlight some women leaders that we admire, it is worth just remembering the unfinished work ahead of us:

  • Of the 750 million adults that are illiterate, two-thirds are women. In India, the male literacy rate is 85% vs. 70% among female counterparts. The good news is the gaps have continued closing for women in each of the last three years.
  • Globally, women are 20% less likely than men to use mobile internet. The largest gaps remain in South Asia (51%) and sub-Saharan Africa (37%).
  • A 2019 study in Ethiopia found that the agricultural productivity of male-headed households was over 44% higher than female-headed households. The same study found that if women had the same return on their resources as men, the gap would be closed, arguing for enhanced access to quality agricultural extension, among other services.

 

Women leading the way activists, technologists, and agriculturists

Savitribai Phule (1831-1897) is regarded as one of the mothers of the modern feminist movement in India. She was illiterate when she married her husband Jyotirao, who later became her teacher and changed this. From there, she pursued more education and enrolled in a teacher’s training program, later becoming the first female teacher and headmistress in India. She founded at least 18 schools, initially focusing on educating girls and a care-home for vulnerable children. She fiercely advocated for an end to discrimination by caste or gender and she died caring for children during an outbreak of the bubonic plague.

 

Ela Bhatt (PC: Wikipedia)

Ela Bhatt (1933-present) is a women’s empowerment and financial inclusion pioneer in India and globally. In 1972, she founded the Self-Employed Women’s Association of India (SEWA), a trade union, after becoming aware of the conditions suffered by poor self-employed women and their lack of rights. Now SEWA has over 1 million members across India and its own cooperative bank, which provides financial independence to women. 

 

 

 

Hedy Lamar (PC: Wikipedia)
Radia Perlman (PC: Wikipedia)

Hedy Lamar (1914-2000) and Radia Perlman (1951-present) are both credited with making today’s internet-accessible mobile phone possible. Hedy is best known as a glitzy Hollywood actress but during World War II, she applied herself to a number of challenges, including improving technology for the Allies. She invented Spread Spectrum Communication Technology to make torpedoes more effective, but it was never used during that era. Today, it’s used to ensure people can talk on a secure, wireless phone line without interruption. Radia Perlman invented the spanning tree protocol, an algorithm that enabled the creation of ‘Ethernet’, the first wireless internet.

 

Dr. Jan Low (PC: The World Food Prize)
Dr. Maria Andrade (PC: International Potato Centre)

Dr. Maria Andrade (1958-present) and Dr. Jan Low (1955-present) developed varieties of drought-resistant and biofortified sweet potatoes, bridging the gaps between agriculture, nutrition, health, and food insecurity for farmers and their families in the tropics, particularly in Africa. Both women were part of a group that was awarded the World Food Prize in 2016. They both continue making a difference today in the field of agriculture.  

 

 

 

Aside from these admirable women, we are inspired daily by the women farmers, including those we feature in our videos, the extension agents that support them, agricultural scientists, technologists, and policymakers that we work with, as well as our own staff. We look forward to continuing to close gender gaps and moving forward this important work of history alongside them, all while building the agency and prosperity of rural women, families, and communities.

On the Effectiveness of Using Low Cost Technology to Reach Farmers

Posted on by Susan Thomas

Digital Green’s FarmStack is a data-sharing platform that integrates farm and farmer data to develop customized and demand-driven information and services offered to farmers via multiple integrated channels of communication (e.g., video and mobile-based channels.) IDinsight, an advisory and research organization, conducted a comprehensive evaluation of a pilot cashew use case in Andhra Pradesh, India, under which soil, weather, and farmer data were combined to deliver targeted agronomic advisories via videos and interactive voice response (IVR).  A summary of IDinsight’s evaluation results, written by Daniel Stein, Rupika Singh, and William Slotznik, was first published on Agrilinks. We are grateful to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for supporting this study. 

India has hundreds of thousands of independent farmers working in hard-to-reach areas, and it can be difficult for these agriculture producers to gather the information they need to maximize crop yields and profits. Organizations like Digital Green are dedicated to using technology to provide farmers with training, information about market prices and other extension services. Traditionally, they have done so using video, but as cellular penetration increases, there is increasingly the opportunity to give farmers customized information via mobile phone.

Digital Green is in the process of developing FarmStack – a platform that helps organizations share data with one another. This system can be used to share customized information and services with farmers, using multiple models of communication. The advisory and research organization IDinsight worked with Digital Green to assess the effectiveness of this platform. FarmStack is still under development, and Digital Green is testing out different use cases of the system in different settings. IDinsight studied a particular FarmStack use case that involved cashew farmers in Andhra Pradesh, in which farmers were given customized advisory information through video, Integrated Voice Response (IVR) and SMS.

Combining videos with customized information: Higher technology adoption

Cashew farmers in Andhra Pradesh generally have low yields, due to inclement weather and nutrient-deficient soil. To promote productivity, the government of Andhra Pradesh has encouraged farmers to adopt “Community-Based Natural Farming” (CBNF previously known as ZBNF) techniques. CBNF involves farmers using natural ingredients (such as cow dung and urine) to create chemical-free fertilizers and pesticides, which can help them achieve higher production at a low cost. The information provided by Digital Green helped disseminate these CBNF techniques developed and endorsed by the Agriculture Department.

IDinsight ran a randomized controlled trial, in which one group of farmers (“video-only”) were invited to watch informational CBNF-focused videos every two weeks. Another group of farmers received implementation of the “FarmStack” system, in which Digital Green delivered supplementary communication to farmers on their phone, along with the in-person video screenings. These messages reinforced content that appeared in the videos and also provided targeted information on weather and soil quality.

Access the final evaluation results here.