Category: Reflections

Co-creating an Industry Standard for Sharing Agricultural Data Globally

Posted on by Susan Thomas

2.5 billion smallholder farmers globally make daily decisions to protect their livelihoods and feed their communities. These farmers receive a staggering amount of information each day from government extension agents, private agribusinesses, and NGOs. With little coordination between these actors, farmers are given information and services that they didn’t demand and can’t use and are forced to make decisions about who they can trust. As climate change increasingly threatens production, and as supply chains are disrupted by crises like COVID-19, the divide between what is needed and what is offered continues to grow.

We have been working towards developing agri-tech solutions to boost the incomes of small-scale farmers. Building on more than ten years of experience with 2 million farmers across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, we’re now leading the development of FarmStack, an agricultural data-sharing platform to enable organizations and individuals to transfer data through peer-to-peer connectors governed by usage policies that codify data sovereignty and control.

On August 20th,  we were invited along with Hewlett Packard Enterprise & Microsoft to participate in a World Bank led webinar series on ‘Co-creating an industry standard for sharing agricultural data globally’. The discussions focused on farmers and the organizations that serve them don’t have an easy and secure way to exchange data which leads to fragmentation and silos; and

  • We need to co-create a public infrastructure that automates the discovery, transfer, and transformation of agricultural data to address this challenge.

There will be two parts of the session; in the first part Rikin Gandhi, co-founder of Digital Green, will present the motivation & architecture of FarmStack with practical use cases. The second part will be a conversation with Lin Nease from Hewlett Packard Enterprises & Ranveer Chandra from Microsoft, on ways to co-create public infrastructure to automate the discovery, transfer, and transformation of agricultural data.

Rikin Gandhi from Digital Green shared the journey of why DG first decided to develop FarmStack, an agricultural data-sharing platform that enables data transfer through peer to peer connectors governed by usage policies that codify data sovereignty and control. He shared the vision for a decentralized architecture & how this effort fits alongside others (e.g., via CGIAR big data, GEMS, World Bank, HPE, GovLab, etc). With an example of a chili farmer in India, he shared how FarmStack can power multiple use cases (You can find his presentation here & a video link to an example use case here)

Rikin was then joined by Lin Nease from HPE, and Ranveer Chandra from Microsoft in a discussion on how each organization is trying to address challenges ranging from data discovery, privacy, security, and balancing incentives. Lin shared how they are supporting automated data discovery by developing data pipelines to enable easier exchange of data, data flow tracking, and data that is easier to find; & Ranveer shared Microsoft’s pioneering work with FarmBeats to make data more usable through visualizations & analytics, as well as more secure through Microsoft Azure’s Confidential Compute service for hardware-level encryption. They discussed the wide variation in availability and quality of data between the Global South and North.

Stewart Collis from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation highlighted the efforts of Gates Foundation & USAID to support the development of a supportive data ecosystem as a key enabling factor and encouraged all actors to consider how their actions and policies contribute to data governance norms and the emerging ecosystem. Laura Ralston from World Bank urged the group to look at data regulations & its implications, and find champions who can drive this effort forward.

Finally, Parmesh Shah from World Bank guided us through audience questions on implications of government policies (e.g., GDPR), the role of blockchain technology while continuing to highlight the importance of involving national and local governments in owning and sustaining such data-sharing platforms.

In case you missed it, you can watch the recording right here! We look forward to hearing your ideas and learning from your experience at contact@digitalgreen.org

Building a Healthy Online Community on WhatsApp with Farmers

Posted on by Susan Thomas

As countries across the world went into lockdown to break the chain of the Coronavirus pandemic, we found novel ways of keeping in touch, exchange information, spread awareness. One of the most interesting things I noticed in the initial days was the ‘virality’ of videos that explained how the COVID-19 virus spreads, as I received the same videos from multiple contacts on the various social media applications. Another feature was the increased use of the internet-based messaging application WhatsApp by local communities that shared hyper-local information that could be at such times indeed lifesaving!

Working with Digital Green I have seen the power of videos in translating complex information into clear and easily understood messages; interacting with the farming communities I have also understood the value of community networks.

At Digital Green, I have been working with various teams to think beyond our popular video-based extension approach which has helped farmers reduce input costs and improve their yield; but we want to do more, we want to help increase their incomes. For this reason, we’ve been watching closely how the rural farming communities have been adopting smartphones and going online in the last few years. The views and subscriptions of our YouTube channel started exploding just as we saw many farmers becoming YouTube sensations and influencers.

This had us fast-forwarding our own plans. Late last year we created a multidisciplinary task force that spent weeks carrying out desk research, holding ideation sessions at work, followed by farmer interactions on the field to find that one eureka moment. The apple didn’t drop. But we were besieged by a number of ideas. We decided to go ninja on each such spark, take quick small steps to tackle them all.

 

Early Insights

We found that our audience (in this pilot project rural Bengaluru, Dodaballapur) was most active on WhatsApp. And that while they were active on the platform it was confined to personal interactions, leisure, and entertainment; rarely for information or building new networks/connections. We also found that the village community was quite fragmented, they were unaware of fellow farmers in their own village and therefore unable to leverage useful information through this new medium of communication. Our experience over the last decade or more has taught us that agricultural practices, problems, and needs are quite hyperlocal in nature, which we find are best tackled by strengthening the community networks.

Thus, we decided to build a hyperlocal farmer’s community on WhatsApp giving them a space to share their farming stories, problems, queries, and successes which could be heard, appreciated, and addressed by experts as well as peers. And once the ground was fertile we wanted to layer it up with more value-added services for the community which could help them fulfill their latent aspirations, increase their income, and bring convenience to them.

We decided to take an iterative human-centered design approach. We started by creating a WhatsApp group by adding a few farmers we had built a rapport with and waited to see how the groups would grow and evolve organically. For the first few weeks, there was no moderation, we encouraged farmers to add other farmers to the group, to post content which they wished to share with their peers. We saw a lot of posts coming through ranging from politics to religion to family pictures (yes, a lot of good morning messages with photos of flowers too) to even some farming related posts. The group which started with 6 farmers had grown to more than 100 farmers in just a month and mostly all organically. The group was not silent for even a single day since it started which was very encouraging. While all of this gave us good learnings but it was not exactly what we were working towards – building a healthy online farming community where farmers exchanged information around agriculture and allied activities.

A group member even shared a collage of the kind of posts which were being exchanged in the group

A group member even shared a collage of the kind of posts which were being exchanged in the group

Our How-to List

That’s how we learned that to build an online community, we had to grow and nurture it. We chalked out and executed many small experiments to run on our group, such as video chat with an Ag-expert, polls, and competitions, etc. We set clear success indicators for each experiment which would guide us in making ‘go’ or ‘no-go’ decisions. Since the reaction to experiments run on WhatsApp were almost immediate we made it a point to synthesis our learnings as a team at the end of each day – this was really helpful in keeping us on track, we were conscious of each decision taken and ensured we would never go back to ‘reinventing the wheel’.

 

We deliberated on our messaging strategy and we even came up with 3 metrics that our content had to fulfill – it must be Relevant, Engaging, and Inspiring. Our posts now focused on:

  • Addressing problems faced by farmers by offering seasonal and timely advice on crops through experts. We held fortnightly conference calls between experts and farmers which was much appreciated by the community
  • Co-creating content with the group members. This was achieved through prompts such as polls posted from time-to-time.
  • Offering information such as daily market rates of major crops of the season that were posted on the group at the same time every day.
  • Farmers were encouraged to share inspiring pictures of their fields which elicited recognition from peers through comments and emojis. This was found to be motivating for the one who shared the pictures as well as for others to practice and share further.

    A collage of the kind of posts which were being exchanged now in the group
    A collage of the kind of posts which were being exchanged now in the group
  • Organizing offline farmer events – this helped set the tone of what farmers could expect online
  • Providing a platform to discover and encourage experts from within the community who could answer questions that arise from peers.

 

Social Listening is Key

This change in the quality of interactions was heartening for us as well as the farmers, who have come to take great pride in being associated with these groups. The members also take tremendous ownership in maintaining the quality of discussions. They value the time spent on this group and if someone toes the line by sending in irrelevant content – another member is quick to share the community guidelines that were developed over the course of the groups’ lifetime.

This experience of careful observation of how the community was engaging on the platform, synthesizing, and iterating helped us grow the groups into effective channels of communication for a network that was fruitful for all. It gave us great confidence to create and engage online communities which we are now applying in other use cases – both agriculture as well as health and nutrition interventions.

Our Journey: Staying farmer focused and learning from evidence

Posted on by Susan Thomas

Digital Green started its journey in 2006 as a project of Microsoft research, with a mission to empower smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the collective power of technology and grassroots-level partnerships. We join forces with governments, private agencies, and rural communities to promote good practices in agriculture, nutrition, and health, using videos that are of the community, by the community, and for the community. 

We recently brought to a close two flagship investments supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) with: (1) A partnership with the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in India; and (2) the Ministry of Agriculture, the Regional Bureaus of Agriculture, and the Agricultural Transformation Agency in Ethiopia through which we have reached 2.3M farmers (70% women), created over 6000 videos and trained over 50,000 frontline extension workers.

With COVID-19 and continued risks posed by climate change, we are continuing to innovate.  As we look towards new innovations with the use of multiple digital channels of communication & solutions to support access to markets, we want to take stock of what we have learned in the past. 

We have learned that a farmer-focused approach is key to promote adoption of new practices. That is why we share locally produced videos on agronomic practices that feature farmers who are role models in their communities, building on social networks through facilitated group discussions to enable collective learning. 

Deep partnerships with governments contribute to systems change at scale. State and national governments have institutionalized the community video approach through committing financial and human resources and embedding the approach in extension strategies. The governments of India and Ethiopia have invested $21.6M in the approach, and 75% of districts we partner with in India have built capacity to independently sustain the approach.

And finally, farmer feedback and data enables constant iteration and high returns on investment. Feedback mechanisms must collect actionable data to enable realignment to individual and community needs. Digital Green’s ‘Connect online Connect Offline’ (COCO) platform tracks gender-disaggregated data and farmer feedback, which informs the next iteration of videos and helps curate content that results in increased impact. 

As a learning organization, we recognize that we have a long way to go – from ensuring that we continue to support our partners address the differences in quality across regions; that data is not just collected but used to make decisions; that content is truly targeted & tailored to the needs of farmers; and that farmers have the agency to choose the extension services they want by controlling and sharing their data on their own terms.  

Starting today, and over the next few weeks, we will share some of our main evidence & learnings in the form of short videos by prominent researchers who have evaluated our collective impact.

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Independent Digital Development Consultant, Martine Koopman, who supported USAID, DFID, BMGF and IFAD funded research by Landell Mills shares here findings on the use of integrated communication channels (video, radio, and IVR advisories) in disseminating agronomic practices in Ethiopia.

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Beyond agriculture, Digital Green has also tested its approach to support health and nutrition messaging among rural farming families. Suneetha Kadiyala, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the team will share preliminary findings from a 4-arm cluster RCT, in Odisha, India to test participatory videos to promote nutritionally sensitive agriculture (NSA) & use of participatory learning and action meetings.

 

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Katya Vasilaky, Assistant Professor at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo talks about the impact of the community video approach when tested at scale in Bihar with the State livelihood mission called JEEViKA. This randomized controlled trial spanning two seasons studies one crop (rice) with a focus on the System of Rice Intensification and also studies different types of messages delivered to farmers.

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David Speilman, Senior Research Fellow at International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) shares the main outcomes from a study evaluating the impact of the community video approach in Ethiopia (on reach, knowledge, adoption, yield & cost-effectiveness). This study was done in the context of three crops (teff, wheat, maize) & practices already being promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture (e.g., row planting, precise seeding rate & urea dressing), and also varied with the gender of the recipient; This RCT was part of a larger research collaboration between IFPRI and Digital Green in Ethiopia, of which many outputs are discussed in this video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Message from Rikin Gandhi, our Co-Founder

Posted on by Susan Thomas

This is a difficult moment for the world. None of us could have imagined the scale and extent of health, economic, and psychological suffering taking place. My heart goes out to the families and friends of those who have been directly affected. All of our lives have become upended so suddenly, and it’s tough not knowing what news tomorrow will bring.

We’re grateful to our board and existing donors who have expressed their full support in helping us navigate these uncertain times.

I also want to thank each member of our frontline teams in Ethiopia and India who has kept in touch with extension agents and farmers by whatever means possible. I know working from home isn’t what many of us signed up for, but the farming communities that we serve have even greater needs as a result of this crisis. We wish we could be together to strategize and support them directly in the field.

I appreciate everyone staying at home to take care of themselves and their families, to slow the spread of the virus, and move the society forward as quickly as possible. That is why we, along with our partners, had to make the tough but clear decision to pause the community video screenings that have been the hallmark of our work.

I know that it isn’t easy to be isolated, and for the first couple of days, I’d admit that I wasn’t sure what I should be doing. I took that opportunity to pause and reflect, and now like many of you, I feel grateful about all that we’re pursuing in our work while also enjoying more time with my family and trying to juggle new household responsibilities.

This crisis has shown how interconnected our world has become. We’re seeing how much our health is tied to others. We’re realizing how much we depend on small-scale farmers for our food supply. And we’re appreciating how much we need each other as a team for comfort and strength.

I am confident that we will look back at this time and take pride in our response. I have been inspired by how quickly each of our staff has mobilized to address the challenge at hand. We’re repurposing existing videos to share awareness and prevention measures for the disease over mobile and social media channels, helping farmers link with markets in the midst of lockdowns, facilitating virtual trainings of frontline workers to stand ready when conditions allow them to be back in the field and have many more initiatives under development.

I’m also encouraged by the hard work that other organizations are doing to rapidly increase COVID-19 testing and vaccine development, which is crucial to resolving this threat over the next year or so. In the meantime, the partners and communities that we serve continue to call on us; and we’re trying to bring together the best in our grounded insights and spirit of innovation to develop ways to not just address the present situation but to create lasting change for the future. That is the mandate of the task forces that we have constituted in Ethiopia and India.

The new approaches that we develop and the ways that we interact with one another during this time will define us for years to come. We had begun shifting our focus from solely extending information to farmers, and instead, enabling farmers to make their own choices to transform their own livelihoods with FarmStack. I believe this is ultimately how we will build resilience for both farmers and ourselves alike not just for COVID-19, but other health, market and weather shocks too.

Farmer and farm profile data can be incredibly powerful to both inform messages that can be shared to meet farmers’ immediate agricultural and health needs. And building on the COCO data that we’ve historically collected, forward-looking data on farmers’ cropping plans for the major agricultural seasons coming up in India and Ethiopia have the potential to connect farmers with personalized extension content, input dealers, credit and insurance facilities, and offtake markets across the value chain.

The situation continues to evolve very quickly and there likely will be more challenging days ahead of us but we are mapping our risks, building contingency scenarios, and pursuing business development opportunities in this new world.

We remain committed to our mission to sustainably increase farmers’ incomes in a nutrition-sensitive, climate-resilient, and inclusive manner. Many experiments we try will fail, but we will ultimately succeed as we always have: starting from the community, being honest about what works and what doesn’t, having each other’s backs, and catalyzing impact at scale.
I wish you and your loved ones continued safety and good health.

Rikin

DG’s organizational response to COVID-19

Posted on by Susan Thomas

Digital Green is helping slow the spread of COVID-19 by supporting staff, partners and community.

We remain committed to supporting farmers, who are in even greater need given the health, food, social and economic challenges of lockdowns and market disruptions. We are working with our partners to understand their needs, and how we can help them too — both by supporting their organizations but also with respect to helping them still engage communities and gather insights they need to inform messages that go out, and their programs and policies more generally to ensure health and food security. To do all this, we have begun putting together internal task forces for staff to explore ways to use technology to support farmers in coping with the near-term and project impacts of this crisis and to strengthen resilience in the future.

While we are finding ways to adapt our programs to be responsive to farmers’ needs, our immediate concern was the wellbeing of our staff.

To slow the spread of the virus and ensure the safety of our staff, partners and communities we serve, we have instituted policies requiring staff worldwide to work from home and restricting travel until further notice.

We have also updated our leave policy. Any staff member who becomes sick with COVID-19 or who must take care of a family member who has been affected will be offered paid sick leave specifically for this circumstance. This COVID-19 sick leave will not be limited and is separate from our normal sick leave to ensure staff are able to get the care they need without additional economic concerns.

We realize that not all staff will be able to continue working from home in a full-time capacity. In order to remain in a position to resume work as soon as it is possible and safe to do so, we have rolled out an administrative leave policy for staff whose roles cannot be carried out remotely. All staff placed on administrative leave will continue to be paid at the same level and receive benefits. Our goals are to support our staff without contributing further to the economic crisis that is resulting from COVID-19 closures and to retain skilled staff members in a position to jump back into our work supporting farmers when the immediate crisis subsides.

We hope you are all staying safe and well during these extremely trying times. We welcome your ideas and suggestions at covid19@digitalgreen.org

 

For more information, resources and updates see this post.

Life in the times of COVID-19

Posted on by Susan Thomas

As social distancing becomes a necessity and remote working a reality, most of our staff based in the regional offices who have been our critical link with the rural farming communities that we serve are adjusting to what is a completely new way of working.

While we have the monthly global staff calls, and the more frequent team/project related discussions over conference calls, these used to last not more than an hour at a time. However, in the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen marathon calls as our teams huddled around project plans to strategize how we should work during the lockdown and how we can continue to reach out to the community members and also support our government partners in their fight against this pandemic.

Upon receiving a request from our government partner National Health Mission – Bihar, our team created this video from existing footage. Our technology team is working on a prototype that expands the scope of the Kisan Diary app to allow farmers to get in touch with businesses that can help them sell their fresh produce.

And our team of Brand & Culture (B&C) Champions (staff from each of the offices that keep our focus on our organizational brand and values) are conducting a survey to consult with the teams spread across the globe and seek suggestions and really understand how everyone is coping, what kind of support they require, what resources they would like to get and through what kind of channels.

Here, our teams shared some reactions from the field-based staff on how they are coping with the self-isolation and remote working:

 

Srikanth Gunjoju, Deputy Program Manager: Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have been following the updates and been worried about my family’s health. As both my wife (Srilatha) and I travel frequently for work, we were worried that we may carry the virus home. Luckily, both our organizations have allowed us the option to work from home even before the Government of India took the decision to lock down the country for 21 days and that helped us prepare ourselves – arrange internet connection at home, buy groceries, and medicine for our parents.

Home quarantine has given me the opportunity to spend more time with my family. Our children, SriLaasya and SriHarsha are happy to see both of us at home and we keep them engaged by playing board games, role-playing, and we’re also teaching them how to water the plants in our kitchen garden. So far, the children are enjoying the new routine.

In the meantime, I’m also planning to accomplish few assignments that frequent travel leaves me little time to do. My wife has also shown interest in knowing more about my work with community videos. She was happy to know the purpose and impact our work is creating in the lives of farmers. Before this quarantine, she only knew where my office was and in which domain I work. Similarly, I’m also learning more about her work. I hope we continue to talk and learn about our work-life even after this lockdown.

 

Venkat Goud, Program Manager: With India going into lockdown for 21 days all sectors are working from home except emergency services who are working very hard to protect us by putting themselves at risk. In this stressful situation, working from home is an unforgettable experience. Everyone is constantly focused on and discussing updates regarding COVID -19 every minute of the day. Any conversations with family, friends, relatives, neighbours, partner staff, other stakeholders are only about COVID-19. Amidst all this, regular calls with the team at the state, India and the Global team has helped me feel connected with others. Sharing experiences and feelings with the team and getting support/guidance has helped in building my confidence and allowed me to work from home smoothly.

 

Ranga Charyulu, Program Manager: This is a unique experience. My work is mainly in the field and at the partner’s offices and includes frequent travel. I am not used to spending so much time at home. But now we are managing work through our laptops and mobile phones form home. I’ve been keeping in touch with the various partner staff and field functionaries over the phone and we all start our calls by inquiring about each other’s and our families’ wellbeing. Regular contact with our teams, catching up on the situation in and around where we all work and chatting about our families helps set the mood right and keeps our spirits high.

 

Deepak Kadas, Assistant Program Manager: I sense a lot of panic seeing everyone around me wearing a mask. All news channels, social media and websites are flooded with the sad news of the growing number of COVID-19 cases. So, I have decided to spend my time sitting in the balcony and enjoying nature, doing some gardening and listening to music. After a long time, I celebrated my birthday with just my family. On the work front, I am making sure to remain in touch with the community outreach workers to check in on them and the farmers in their area. One interesting update I’m getting from them is that these days many farmers have started enquiring more about kitchen gardens. During this crisis, they are happy to get fresh vegetables from the kitchen gardens. I feel happy and confident that more farmers will come forward to adopt a kitchen garden.

 

Masthan K Vali, Program Manager: Following up with the community outreach workers over the phone is a new experience, and really challenging especially since they too are stuck in their homes since the government’s orders of the lockdown came into effect on 23rd March. Our thoughts are always with the farmers who are unable to get the necessary guidance/information at this crucial moment of the harvest season. All activities like Farmer Field Schools (FFS) in the morning, Video Disseminations in the evening and meetings for Self-Help Groups (SHGs) has been paused. Frontline workers are following up with the farmers over the phone but getting new adopters into the system is a big challenge. But I’m hoping for the best and hope we’ll overcome this pandemic soon by adopting social distancing.

 

Amitesh Anand, Program Manager: As the whole world goes through this life-changing event how can we be left untouched. For me, working from home is an entirely new concept and I have mixed feelings about it. Initially, I was confused but gradually I got into a schedule much like my usual day when I would go to the office – trying to trick my brain into believing I had that same routine. I would wake at 6:30 AM and leave for my office (room upstairs) by 9:30 AM after having my breakfast and saying goodby to my wife and son, have my lunch at 1:30 PM and come back downstairs at 5:30 PM. This new office is pet friendly 🙂

Sudha Jha, Senior Program Manager: I’ve been managing to keep my child engaged with yoga and innovative games. We also discovered 3D pictures of animals on Google to keep him engaged and learning. I even shaved off his head since he’s not going to be worried about how his hair looks while we’re stuck at home.

Jagdish Sing Rana, Assistant Program Manager: Initially working from home seemed very difficult, but now I’m getting into the habit. Most of my work requires in-person meetings with our partners. But everyone’s got to figure out a way to continue doing their work while remaining quarantined. I’m trying to keep in touch with the National Health Mission team members, get regular field updates, manage data entry, etc. Along with this, I am also taking care of myself and my family’s health and hygiene.

My family has been very supportive while I work from home. I live in a joint family, so space is a bit of a challenge. I share the bedroom all day with my 6-year-old daughter who is obsessed with cartoons. But since I have been working from home she has turned down the volume of the TV and she turns it off by herself when I have to get on a call. I am also trying to make more masks at home with my wife since those in the market are quite expensive and ineffective.

Our colleagues from Odisha and Jharkhand have made neat work corners in their homes.

 

 

Uncovering the Link Between Access to Nutrition and Markets Through Research

Posted on by Susan Thomas

According to the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), average fruit and vegetables (F&V) consumption in Bihar equalled 132 g/capita/day in 2011-2012. Therefore, people in Bihar on average consume approximately one-third of the global recommendation of 400 grams/capita/day (FAO and WHO, 2014). In turn, consumers dependent upon nutritionally vulnerable markets (i.e. those that are traditional, small and often rural) are likely to face the greatest challenges to fruit and vegetable access and affordability.

Digital Green’s ‘Loop’ project aims to help farmers save time and reduce the cost of transporting their vegetable produce to market. In Loop, an aggregator collects and markets fruits and vegetables on behalf of farmers – optimising transport based on the volume of produce. The model leverages digital technology to ensure transparency, efficiency and trust between the aggregator and farmer, which in turn enables better negotiation power for bulk selling in most cases. It also saves the farmer market transport costs and allows them to reinvest the time and money into on-farm and recreational activities.

The Market Intervention for Nutritional Improvement (MINI) project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the UK Department for International Development (DfID), aims to explore the nutritional aspects of the market and technical interventions in vegetable and poultry value chains in Bihar and Bangladesh. Led by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI, Vietnam), the project involves researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU, Dhaka) and Lincoln University, New Zealand, as well as Sadman Sadek, Vinay Rana, Dr Nadagouda and Namita Singh from Digital Green (amongst others!).

Digital Green’s Vinay Rana (Patna office) works with farmers to map the locations of Loop villages and markets during the first ‘Group Model Building’ session in Muzaffarpur (January 2019)

The research focuses on the ways in which aggregation schemes (such as Loop) may be made more nutritionally sensitive – which refers to the availability and affordability of F&V in some of the more rural, traditional and retail-based markets. However, achieving this goal is not a case of simply sending greater volumes of F&V towards smaller markets. This is owing to various conditions and feedbacks that make rural markets less attractive to farmers and consumers alike, including less developed transport and market infrastructures, inferior market capacities and the typically weaker purchasing power of rural consumers. As a consequence, we need to think carefully about how the aggregation system such as Loop may be utilised to minimise trade-offs and achieve ‘win-win’ scenarios for both farmers and consumers.

The MINI project takes a multidisciplinary approach to the research problem. To date, rapid value chain analyses in Bihar, India and Jessore district, Bangladesh, have identified the key actors involved in the respective horticultural value chains. From here, survey campaigns interviewed 360 farming households in both Bihar and Bangladesh. In Bhojpur and Muzaffarpur districts, Bihar, we tentatively find that Loop farmers on average produced and sold higher quantities of F&V relative to farmers that had not participated in Loop between 2018-2019 (please note: this result is not final and yet to be tested with robust econometrics). Through common econometric techniques, the research team is currently investigating the extent to which these outcomes can be attributed to Loop participation, as well as the various socioeconomic factors that might determine Loop participation in the first place.

A team member from the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) pilots the household survey with a farmer from Minapur block, Muzaffarpur (February 2019)

System dynamics modelling builds upon the value chain analyses and household surveys. Working alongside the experts at Digital Green and select groups of farmers, traders and commission agents in Bhojpur and Muzaffarpur, the MINI project team have built a system dynamics model to simulate the future evolution of Loop under various scenarios. These scenarios range from internal changes to Loop (e.g. scaling-up farmer numbers and transport subsidies) to making changes within the wider enabling environment – such as the introduction of accessible cold storage facilities in F&V markets. The model is just starting to produce the first future simulations as we speak, so please watch this space over the coming weeks and months!

The start of 2020 sees the MINI project beginning to apply the same techniques to the homestead poultry programme run by JEEViKA in Bihar. Whilst JEEViKA’s poultry programme initially focused on improving household nutrition (e.g. through chicken meat and egg consumption), the MINI project and Digital Green are interested in the potential market linkages and opportunities to expand the poultry programme for nutritional benefits beyond the household scale. This analysis will run in parallel with a similar project based in Ghana, led by Dr Karl Rich (ILRI), to ultimately evaluate whether a pioneering aggregation model such as Loop might bring about nutritional benefits in poultry value chains and markets.

 

About the Author:

Dr Gregory Cooper is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Development, Environment and Policy (CeDEP), SOAS, University of London. Follow the story of the research project here on his blog.

A more detailed interview on the MINI research project can be found here in a series of 3 articles: Unravelling value chains through participatory modelling: Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3

Keeping it Simple: Technology for Smallholder Farmers

Posted on by Susan Thomas

Agricultural practices in developing countries such as India are often influenced by traditional practices and farmers’ collective wisdom, which do not necessarily translate to optimal productivity or profits. Also, recent studies reveal that most small-scale farmers or the youth in the farming families no longer view farming as a sustainable livelihood source.

However, as per India’s census of 2011, 263 million people are engaged in the agriculture sector. It provides employment to 56% of the Indian workforce. The sector’s performance has strong ripple effects on other sectors, directly or indirectly, as well as far-reaching implications on the social, political and economic spheres.

Most agricultural extension and advisory services in developing countries have been following traditional methods including on-farm demonstrations, organizing farmer groups, and farmers’ training, training of extension providers and developing training modules and materials. However, these have been costly, slow and limited in effectiveness due to various reasons such as generic, top-down content and language barriers.

It was almost ten years ago that a group of engineers and economists in Microsoft Research’s Technology for Emerging Markets office in Bengaluru, India hit upon an idea to support agricultural extension. The solution was quite simple– to involve the community itself in developing content by putting the technology into their own hands– and which proved to be at least ten times more efficient and seven times more likely to encourage farmers to adopt new practices compared to conventional agricultural extension systems.

The idea eventually spun off as a non-profit–Digital Green–which developed the approach further. To ensure usage of technology available to smallholder farmers in a manner that connects the farmer with the content, a community video production team creates videos using simple, low-cost tools, averaging eight to ten minutes in length. The content is locally relevant, evidence-based and produced in the local language. Members of the community are cast in these short videos enabling viewers to connect instantly with the message. Subject matter experts review the video content before it is finalized for screening using battery-operated Pico projectors where a trained village resource person mediates a discussion around it. Followups are done regularly to ensure the adoption of actual practices.

According to the FAO, global food production will need to rise by 70% to meet the projected demand by 2050. This points to a critical need to act quickly to support farmers–especially, smallholder farmers who account for 80% of global agricultural production from developing regions–get timely and correct information to increase production and gains.

Despite several well-meaning attempts to use ICTs for empowering communities, its true potential is yet to be harnessed in the agriculture sector while other more complex technologies continue to be developed. Learning from Digital Green’s experience, the solution to this problem lies in capitalizing the rise of, and ubiquitous nature of, information and communication technologies (ICTs). Other low-cost technology such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems and text messages, that smallholder farmers have access to, can also be used to send out additional information or reinforce messages. Various development organizations, technology firms, and research teams have already begun exploring how the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and precision farming can be used to empower farmers.

With newer technology being developed, it is possible to provide more nuanced solutions to farmers, if the potential of these technologies is used more effectively. We are currently, in partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh’s Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (APDoAC), piloting multiple technologies such as drones and helium balloons as well as soil moisture sensors, weather forecasting systems to test how newer technology can be further engaged to better service smallholder farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India.

This partnership among various organizations dedicated to piloting technology-based innovation in agriculture highlights the importance of tapping into available technology to enable greater productivity in agriculture while empowering the farmers to adapt to newer technology and challenges. As our world evolves, we certainly need more evolved and collaborative ways of adapting the simultaneously evolving technology, to accelerate progress for all.

Principles of an Excellent Partnership

Posted on by Susan Thomas

 

Nearly 6 years ago in March 2012, I met with Mr Arvind Chaudhary, the then CEO of Jeevika and Mr Devraj Bahera, the then state project manager to explore if we could introduce Digital Green’s community-based video approach to promote good livelihoods practices in Bihar. Digital Green was then barely a few years old. We had however successfully developed an approach based on two years of field-based research at Microsoft Research in using video as a medium to promote good agricultural practices. We had found that if videos were produced by the community, featuring community members with a local intermediary screening these videos in an interactive, human-mediated format, the impact was high. Our experience was therefore limited to working with rural social networks through NGO partners. We did not have much experience of working with Self Help Groups nor with a large government program such as National Rural Livelihoods Mission. We were nervous and were not very sure if our approach tested primarily for agriculture sector would be successful in a multi-domain area like livelihoods.

We began with some hesitation a pilot in one block of Muzaffarpur district and today we work in all the 38 districts of the state, have directly reached over 650,000 SHG women, produced over 550 videos on subjects ranging from agricultural practices to poultry, livestock, nutrition, health, sanitation, rural credit and SHG strengthening; have developed a cadre of over 50 frontline workers and community members to produce videos and trained over 5,500 community members to facilitate screening of videos using pico projectors in a highly interactive format. We were also able to scale this approach across 5 states through NGO and government partners to 1,200 villages and 60,000 farmers.

In Bihar, an in-house cadre of master trainers and master resource persons has been developed within Jeevika to provide training and assure the quality of operations. Our data management platform COCO – connect online, connect offline, that can be used both in offline and online modes, has proved useful to improve project activities as well as serve as a tool for performance management of the front-line staff. Increasingly, this approach is being institutionalized and mainstreamed within Jeevika so that it can be sustained beyond Digital Green’s current partnership. Looking back nearly 65% of the viewers have adopted the promoted practices.

We believe that our efforts along with other interventions in introducing appropriate digital tools into agriculture value chain have injected an entrepreneurial mindset in the rural women which can be harnessed to develop enterprise models. It is so energizing to see rural women making videos or disseminating them, holding discussions on the pros and cons of various practices. Apart from promoting good practices, this approach has resulted in empowering them in a variety of ways. I have been personally struck by their self-confidence every time I have watched a video dissemination in a village or interacted with them.

In a workshop last week, we tried to understand better what made this project so successful. We sought to explore if there were any lessons that can be learned from this experience? Can this experience be replicated? Are there things we could have done differently?

Reflecting on these questions one of the most important reasons that came to my mind, has been the successful partnership that Digital Green and Jeevika have been able to forge. On a dispassionate reflection, I have articulated the following 6 principles that seem to have been responsible for this successful partnership.

1. Recognition of the need for a partnership 

Jeevika had the peoples’ institutional base at scale and Digital Green the digital technology to leverage it to promote good practices in an accelerated and consistent manner. There was complementarity and we both recognised the need.

2. Clear and common purpose and objectives 

Both Jeevika and Digital Green are committed to empowering the poor to so that they can lift themselves out of poverty. So, we were clear in our purpose and accordingly our objectives were defined through an MoU. However, I must emphasize that we always went by the spirit of the cause and never by the letter of the MoU alone which brought us together.

3. Committed leadership 

Jeevika’s leadership has always been committed to the partnership and despite several changes at the leadership level, we never faced any disruption in our work. Every time I have met with Mr Balamurugan (the current CEO), I have come back inspired and motivated. He is able to anticipate problems that we might be facing and offers solutions that are much more than what we expect.  When we shared our new strategy and new methods we were trying out, his support was immediate and very encouraging. I still recall another instance when Mr Chaudhary (the former CEO) had shifted to the secretariat as Secretary and was also officiating as CEO, I requested for a meeting and despite being busy, he met and agreed to almost everything we requested and discussed. And by the time we reached the office, we were told that concerned staff had already received the communication.

4. Trust between Jeevika and Digital Green

We have enjoyed unmatched trust not only with top leadership but also at the district and block levels. There is mutual respect for each other and it is so nice to learn during every visit, how much Jeevika staff values our work. As we implemented new approaches and innovations, we have never received any resistance and have always received unqualified support.

5. Good and open communication between Jeevika and Digital Green

We have developed formal channels of communication at the state, district and block levels through different platforms that meet every quarter, month or fortnight respectively. Each issue is discussed in detail, progress is reviewed, problems anticipated and resolutions found before they could surface. Beyond these platforms, staff are in touch and whenever help or an action is needed, this is provided immediately.

6. Systems to monitor, measure and learn 

Jeevika has proactively supported Digital Green to use its data management platform by providing data entry operators to enter data into the system routinely. The analytical dashboard is used to improve project activities and monitor the performance of frontline cadres and make payments to them. Jeevika encourages Digital Green to carry out third-party evaluations and studies to learn about the implementation challenges on the ground.

Please click on this link to read a summary report about the workshop and view the photo gallery.

Witnessing Solidarity, Sisterhood and Success

Posted on by Susan Thomas

“Stories are the shortest distance between us and truth. So when we understand and uncover these stories, we gain the opportunity to understand that maybe we need a new story.” – Colette Baron Reid

Being a part of Digital Green’s Training team I’ve had the opportunity to travel to several states in India to train field level extension agents on video production and disseminating these videos on best practices related to agriculture and health and nutrition. I’ve found that trainings are extremely interesting settings to meet new people, and get to know the local cultures and lived realities of people. At Digital Green, our trainings typically span over three to five days, which is just about enough time to get to know and develop a bond with the people you are working with.

At such trainings that I have facilitated, I have met many young dynamic women of my age. In my informal interactions with some of them, during breaks and after trainings, I have gotten so many insights into their lives that have left me both inspired and also saddened at the absolute inequality we live with and have come to see as normal.

Under the Government of India’s flagship National Rural Livelihood Programme efforts have been made to organise women in each village into Self Help Groups (SHGs) of 10 to 12, to put it simply – with the aim of collecting regular contributions of small sums from each member to create a larger pool from which they could borrow when one of them needs a loan.

In the course of my travels across states like Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand where I have delivered trainings for Digital Green I have seen how these SHGs have been successful in creating a sense of belonging and community for these women. After marriage, women traditionally get relegated to household chores, tending to their children and families, and almost never have any social circle of their own. Their life typically revolves around their immediate family. Very often, their maternal homes are also not places they can turn to for support of any kind. It is in fact considered taboo for married women to interact with their maternal families, except for specific festivals, which can leave them feeling quite isolated.

In this light, these SHGs have come to signify much more than platforms where they can safely save and take loans from. Recently at a training in Bihar, I asked some of these young women if they had ever before been out their homes for a prolonged period, without another family member accompanying them. Except for one, for all others, it was their first time. One woman shared how they would have never had a chance to meet each other and become friends had it not been for the SHG group they are a part of, which in turn led them to participate in the video production training. At the end of the fifth day, I saw all of them exchanging phone numbers and promising to keep in touch.

At another training, in Jharkhand, I spoke to the woman who was serving food at the venue, and I got to know about the cafe that she had started at the Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society block office. She shared that she had taken some loan from her SHG and started the cafe along with three other women from the group. She looked absolutely confident about the quality of her food, and in the way, she was going about her work.

All the efforts we put in to reach women seem worthwhile when you meet someone like her. This is a success story for me not only because of the success of her café but also because of the collaboration the women in the group were able to achieve with one another. Instances like these make me wonder if we will ever be able to capture such intimate heart-warming stories in our impact assessments.

Besides the actual saving and lending, when women meet in their SHG meetings, it’s wonderful to see them go through their routine of introductions, prayers, attendance, signing registers, filling forms and bearing the office of president, secretary and other such designations with such pride and sense of responsibility. To me, just the process of it feels empowering. Having your name called out as a member of an association, to have an identity outside of the traditional role of wife, mother or daughter-in-law – to many it might not seem worth mentioning, but sometimes, something as small as this can help in developing a stronger sense of identity.

Another recurring feature which strikes me every time I am in the company of a group of young women is being asked how I ended up doing what I do, how much did I study, where did I study? If I am married, how does my family ‘allow’ so much travel? I sense so much curiosity in them about my life. In the differences they see, they understand the many ways in which they have led a more marginalized life. A lot of times, we have new and lactating mothers attending the trainings, and it is absolutely amazing to see how they juggle between looking after their infants and participating in the training. I often think that they could have been working with me in my office, or be sitting in my drawing room, discussing all the issues plaguing us as a society, just like I do with my friends back in the city. It’s just an accident of birth that they struggle to manage their traditional roles and responsibilities of the household as well as contribute to the work in the farming and livestock management and I am traveling around the country meeting people, making my own decisions and earning an income.

I am very hopeful and positive about big leaps being made with regards to gender in the next few decades, which might be a long time in the span of an individuals’ life, but short given the enormity of the problem. SHGs allow women to share their problems, their stories resulting in a new awareness of sorts and a development of solidarity – they realize that they are not alone in what they are facing, and it lends so much strength to them to bring in change for themselves and their families. Once a woman sees her own oppression, it is difficult for her to un-see it, and this is the very first step in solving a problem – to be able to see it as a problem.