Category: Reflections

In my use of human-centered design (HCD) at Digital Green, I found that the inspiration and ideation phase in HCD as being completely intertwined. They can’t really be separated into two neatly divided phases. While we were trying to find a solution to the question ‘How can we enable field level workers to operate equipment confidently?’ – the processes we followed seemed to make no sense initially. In my previous blog, I had mentioned that it was the ‘messiness’ of the process that I really started enjoying, once I stopped being so hung up about ‘being systematic’. In that, what I both enjoyed and learnt the most was the freedom to follow your intuition and develop your own versions of methods, activities and processes.

While we used several of the conventional methods, such as interviews and secondary research, we also designed and conducted activities with users that we felt would get us closer to our design principles, and the solution. They could largely be bunched under 2 categories:

• Sharing what they know: We wanted our users, the field level workers, to learn the technical aspects of equipment operation really well. Therefore, it was important to understand the current experience and knowledge levels. What they shared revealed some very interesting insights. For example, that their ‘visual language’ was very different than ours. Or symbols on equipment, which we take for granted, is complex for them. They understood illustrations which show the context better than abstract symbols.

• Sharing their perspective: As trainers, we tend to see the learning process from our perspective and it is quite difficult to know the perspective of a person who learns differently from us. We saw this difference and wanted to understand from the field-level workers what is necessary for them to learn and how the learning process can be made easier. To reach there, we asked them to demonstrate how they would have made their peers learn, which revealed some critical aspects in their learning, for instance, the verbal language used in training – they used different terms to explain things than our trainers.

Under the above two categories, we conducted several activities, some of which used ‘co-creation’. I am using the term co-creation to define a process in which the end user creates at least some part of the prototype. It is a concept, not a tool or a method. Several methods can use the concept of co-creation. It could be a role-play that the users develop along with the designer, or a script for which they provide dialogues.

Participatory Video techniques and Co-creation

Of the different methods, I focus on participatory video here. Working with any participatory process, including video production, teaches you to learn from those who are at the center of the issue. Participatory video production is supposed to be driven by communities to communicate what they want to, and in a manner that they want. In co-creation models, though the user community is involved in the creation of a prototype/solution, they are usually not the ones driving it. Further, they communicate what the designer wants them to communicate. To make it more tangible, through participatory videos a community could have made a video about any issue they cared about. But as part of co-creation, we, the designers, asked them to make a video story specifically about equipment operation. The agenda was driven by us, not them.

Our team combined these two seemingly similar, but actually different concepts. We created several prototypes for different solutions that can together improve the training. The possible solutions included a training video, an illustrative handout and a team game that also works as a skill assessment. Initially, we thought that an obvious prototype of a video would be a role-play or a script. But then we thought – we have all the equipment and experience to make a video quickly. So, when prototyping, we used participatory video techniques for co-creation of a video. We asked the field level workers to develop the content for the video, which would show their peers how the equipment works. When they discussed the story with us, they had:

• Developed characters – who should be training whom (a senior field level worker will train a new joiner)
• Decided the context – when does one need the learning support (users usually find it difficult to operate equipment at the beginning),
• Defined the content – what are the essential operations to be learnt (a 15 step process)

We shot the prototype video with them, edited it the same evening and tested it the next day in a meeting of field level workers. Interestingly, most of the feedback that we got was related to the audio and light quality. Pretty much everything else worked. We made some basic changes, developed another version and tested that too, to come to a version – one both the users and us were happy with. We used the same process for two other training videos, where users even shot the video (though they did not edit it), and both times the results were the same. Very clearly, the users were the best creators, at least in this case.

We acted just as facilitators, and the users were creating the whole framework. It definitely helped that I knew participatory video techniques well, and it was easy for me to facilitate the process of story development and shooting.

The final training video that we shot was not participatory. Professional filmmakers, who were not related to the context at all took the script and shot the video with professional actors. This was done primarily to ensure ‘quality’ since that was the major drawback of the prototype video that we created. However, it was still ‘co-created’. After all, the script, though modified to some extent, was developed by the users.

The use of these different methods for research and prototyping gave us some strong design principles that kept us in good stead as we made several training videos over the course of 2 years. You can watch the training videos that we made on pico operation, documentation and video production here.

Do you know of designers who’ve used participatory techniques and/or processes in their design research? Have you used it yourself? I would definitely be interested to know more about your experiences in bringing together participatory videos and HCD together.

At the beginning itself, I have to admit that when I took a first glance at the human-centered design (HCD) approach, I couldn’t discern much difference between qualitative/participatory research methods and HCD research methods. I had mentioned in my earlier blog that at Digital Green, we decided to use the HCD approach to develop a more efficient training system. As we moved through the inspiration and ideation phase, I could see a lot of parallels between qualitative/participatory research and HCD, both in the approach and in the tools. However, there were some very specific differences too. What similarities did I find, and what were those differences?

Framing your Design challenge (or a Research Question)

at sorted, we set out to set ourselves a design challenge. Since creating a more effective and efficient training system was our main goal, we started developing our design challenge around it. The three main difficulties that we faced in framing our challenge were:

• How to frame a question that has appropriate scope? What is ‘nothing too wide and nothing too narrow’?
• How to ensure that our biases do not creep in into the question we frame?
• How do we know we have arrived at the right question?

These issues are very similar to those a qualitative researcher faces when developing her/his research question. One benefit of designing a challenge within an organization is that at the beginning itself you might have a very good sense of the impact that you want to have. Whereas an academic researcher is not looking at impact per se, but at the knowledge and learning that the research can help create. And, therefore, this process could be much more ambiguous for her. At the same time, working in an organizational context can limit you right at the beginning. I personally felt so caught in thoughts like, ‘But this is not how things happen at DG’, ‘But others will never be open to this’, ‘Oh, it is going to be so difficult to implement something like this.’ Before we could free ourselves to be ‘creative’ and ‘innovative’, we were binding ourselves. What helped us to get through the process was:

• Not trying to resolve all problems through one question
• Coming up with lots and lots of questions, narrowing them down, deciding unanimously the one which we definitely wanted to pursue to impact our community, and then refining it.
• While refining the question, keeping the impact that we wanted to create at the center, and not letting other organizational considerations affect us at this stage.
• For the following round of refinement, keeping an eye out for the real issues at the organization and field level and tweaking the question accordingly.

When deciding our challenge, we went from very broad and ambiguous questions, for instance, ‘how can we have an efficient training system?’, to very narrow and biased ones, for instance, ‘ how can video be used to train field level workers?’.  After a lot of iterations, the design challenge that we came up with, that worked for us, was ‘How might we ensure that field level workers can operate equipment confidently?’

Choosing the right methods – for generating data + creating innovative solutions

To find solutions, we started off with planning our research. It can be a tough call deciding which methods would be the most appropriate for you to find the answers and get closer to your solutions. The method that you use can determine the information and answers you get. There can be endless methods to use in HCD – you can stick to fairly traditional ones, such as interviews, to more creative ones, such as making collages, or you can even develop your own!

I felt that reaching the right methods is a comparatively well-laid down path in academic research. Once you know your research approach and the epistemology, it is easier to find suitable methods to generate data that can answer your research question. In HCD, while you know the end you want to reach, the multitude of methods and their appropriateness can be slightly tricky to navigate through. Because you do not want to simply generate data, but you want to be ‘creative’ to find an ‘innovative’ solution. There are multiple purposes that methods in HCD research must fulfill. I found that in HCD mapping the methods against three main purposes can be rather helpful. These purposes are:

1. Developing some basic knowledge about the challenge
2. Thinking more creatively about the actual challenges and solutions
3. Learning in-depth about the challenge from the people directly facing it 

We used interviews and observation extensively for our first purpose – ‘developing some basic knowledge’. Analogous inspiration helped us get some creative ideas and peer-to-peer activities helped us delve deeper into the issues that field level workers faced. For example, one of the methods that we used was to ask one field level worker to explain the functioning of the pico projector to others. The image here represents one such activity. This ‘mix-methods’ approach helped us open our minds to the various possibilities of what solutions can look like.

Prototyping solutions, iteration and messiness

We did a thematic data analysis right after our secondary research and interviews to get further direction, and developed‘sub-challenges’ or ‘insight statements’. We zeroed in on three main things that can be possible solutions for an effective training system: 1) contextual training videos; 2) game-based objective assessment; 3) illustrative handout.

So far so good. So far very much like academic research. But this is where things changed… and got messy. Collecting data, analyzing it, developing prototypes, testing prototypes, collecting more data, analyzing the new data, developing another prototype…. All of it went on in a very intuitive and non-linear manner. One day you conduct a peer-to-peer activity and the very next day you’ve done a quick analysis developed a prototype and are out in the field testing it. It was nothing like… a literature review of data collection to data analysis to writing… what I did in a step-by-step manner while doing academic research. And the messiness didn’t make someone like me, who does things very systematically, happy and comfortable!

The messiness of the process also created some friction in the team, because often things didn’t make a lot of sense and I, for one, questioned if it was leading anywhere. But the deeper we dug, answers started becoming clearer. The more iteration we did on prototypes, the closer we got to our solution. After all, like they say, there was some method to the madness. What I learnt was this:

1. Do not rely too much on assumptions based on your thematic analysis. Rely more on what the real life scenarios teach you.
2. Prototyping can feel difficult, but just make something! Even a really quick and bare prototype will give you insights
3. Every iteration should bring something new and answer your design challenge. When that stops happening, stop prototyping. 

The hidden academic researcher in me initially desisted the quick iterative and non-linear nature of HCD, but also realized that the value in it is you do not spend too much time creating a ‘beautiful’ solution, which doesn’t work all that well. Quick iterations help you get rid of bad ideas before you’ve put in too much effort, money and time, and (more dangerously) before you get quite convinced about your ideas yourself!

More than the ‘method’, the madness was what I started enjoying in our subsequent use of HCD. This included creating our own ‘methods’ and process variations. Since I have done participatory video, I used some techniques from it for developing prototypes. In my next blog, I would focus on using participatory video technique in HCD, what it meant for us to co-create and where it took us while creating our solutions. 

Travelling through western Maharashtra recently, I could not help but notice the contrast between the villages here and those in the eastern belt of Bihar and Jharkhand. A greater variety of crops, abundant fields, and progressive farming practices – the differences were many. I was told that my first impressions may not hold true for the entire state, but certainly do for the belt containing the villages of Adhegaon, Alegaon, and Chandaj (Adhegaon cluster). This region has a long history of vegetable cultivation. Moreover, various private companies selling seeds, fertilizer, fungicides, and the likes often conduct demos in this area – making farmers here pioneers in adopting new inputs. But is that all, I asked myself? Through field interactions, I learned that there was more to the success than obvious – collective action was an important facilitator. The farmers in these villages form a close-knit community with regular (and transparent) information sharing amongst each other. For farming, they have formed a WhatsApp group on which they exchange information on what crops to grow, what seeds to buy, what fertilizers to use, and how to harvest. In the dense maze of private companies and the government selling/promoting a variety of inputs, often this peer learning WhatsApp platform helps in reducing the information clutter. When it comes to selling, these farmers normally patronize with specific traders, sometimes aggregating produce with a small group of other farmers. Farming in this cluster is a profitable business but has the potential to increase farmer’s income even more – especially the smallholders.With funding from the British Asian Trust, Digital Green is leading the implementation of the LOOP project in Maharashtra, in partnership with Mann Deshi Foundation. Through this, participating farmers can:

• • aggregate produce more effectively by including a larger number of farmers, and therefore greater quantities of the crop for sale

 

• access newer markets that could potentially help them earn more with the same produce

During my time in the village, I saw farmers growing bananas, pomegranates, okra, watermelon and most magnificent of all – marigold. With the festive season right around the corner, marigolds were in full bloom, ready to flood the markets. At that time the price of the crop increases from INR 10 per kg to about INR 100 per kg, making it quite lucrative for farmers. The price, of course, depends on the market, and the key to realizing a good profit is information on the rates in different markets – and this is exactly what the LOOP app facilitates. I learned that before being part of the LOOP project, farmers normally went to the Pune flower market where they got a rate of about INR 45 – 50 per kg during peak season. This is almost half of their INR 80 per kilo earning from a four-day sale of flowers in Mumbai through LOOP. With an additional net profit of INR 350,000 from the sale, farmers were more than thrilled to be a part of the program. In fact, one among those farmers chose not sell his flowers with the others, and realized a price of INR 45 per kg only, losing out on the additional profit. From this experience, now these farmers are tapping markets for other crops they grow. Recently, they made a sale of inferior quality raw bananas in one of Mumbai’s chips making value chain, instead of the Panghat market where they usually went.

Despite this success, the experience in the Adhegaon cluster raises some critical questions. Are these simply some preliminary windfall gains – just a matter of chance? Or can farmers maintain a consistent increase in their income? If yes, who will ultimately bear the burden of the rise in prices? What if the aggregator or transport provider, in the long run, becomes another middleman in the market? Will grading improve the farmers’ chances to increase their incomes even further? What additional value-added services can help these smallholder farmers? Can we digitalize payments so as to reduce financial risks in large transactions? These are some important questions that Digital Green is working on. While the long-term success of the project is still to be proven in Maharashtra, the Adhegaon cluster is certainly showing a positive impact in the short term.

Last week my colleagues and I were at the Andhra Pradesh AgTech Summit 2017 organized by Government of Andhra Pradesh, Confederation of Indian Industries(CII), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Dalberg. The AgTech Summit held on 15th, 16th, & 17th November, 2017 in Vishakhapatnam brought together various agriculture technology companies from across the world to share and deliberate on the theme of “Progressive Farmer, Smart Farming”, highlighting various technologies that are currently being used or have potential to be used in agriculture – ranging from the use of drone, hydroponics, data-driven analytics to various apps and extension technologies. The audience comprised of farmers, students, scientists, policy-makers, and thought-leaders.

Digital Green was invited as a partner to the Department of Agriculture, Government of Andhra Pradesh to display our unique video-enabled extension approach at the AgriTech exhibition. Although small compared to other agri-technology companies exhibiting, the size of our stall at the exhibition was no barrier for the throngs of farmers and students who were keen to learn more about our community-based extension approach.

The humble pico projector that enables extension agents we train to share best practices in agriculture with smallholder farmers in the field played a key role in drawing an impressive footfall to our stall at this global event.

Through 2 pico projectors, we played four community videos in Telugu language, on natural farming best practices. The videos acted as a magnet, especially for farmers. One farmer would stop to view the video and another farmer would follow suit. Gradually there was a small gathering of about 10-12 farmers watching the video and they would stay to ask about the actors in the video – farmers like themselves – and about the practice showcased.

Satyanarayana, a farmer as well as a milk aggregator, from Kottakota village in Vishakhapatnam district in Andhra Pradesh, where our intervention is yet to reach, was eager to use such videos to learn best practices and apply them himself as well as motivate the nearly hundred farmers that he interacts with on a day-to-day basis. Another farmer M.V. Subba Rao from East Godavari district has been looking for literature and relevant information on zero-budget natural farming and pointed out that Digital Green extension system will be helpful to farmers in his community. Gundra Ambayya, a smallholder farmer from V.Kothapalli village in East Godavari district requested that we transfer the videos on natural farming methods onto his mobile phone – which we did with pleasure. While watching a video on natural farming method for cultivating tomatoes, one farmer asked us “Why did they put a stick as a support for the tomato plant?” He wanted to watch more such videos on vegetable cultivation. Many Agriculture Sciences students were also fascinated by the videos and agreed that it’s a good way to reach many farmers.

This experience reiterated our faith in the farmer-to-farmer learning process and community-driven extension system. Our model of community-based videos supporting extension outreach is completely by the community, for the community. Since 2008, we have facilitated the production of more than 5,000 locally relevant videos in more than 50 languages. We have done this in collaboration with our grassroots partners and rural farmers themselves, allowing farmers to share knowledge with one another.

In those three days, my colleagues and I have explained the concepts of our video-enabled extension approach, many times over to the teeming farmers and delegates.

Farmers, students, and Summit delegates were keen to know when Digital Green services would reach their villages, whether we have an app to access these videos and if there are crop specific natural farming videos and whether they could watch these videos on their mobile phones. They wanted to know if we could share the phone number of the farmers featured in the videos and if we could train them on video production and dissemination. On reflecting I’m struck by the tremendous urgency in our farmers to learn about new methods and technologies to improve their practice. The farming community, in general, is vexed with current production systems in which input cost is higher than the value they realize from the output, leaving them disoriented with their occupation as a farmer – despite the hard work and dedication. Farmers are desperately looking for more sustainable production systems. This is where extension services become most crucial. The curiosity among farmers as seen in our interaction at the exhibition stall point to the fact that farmers are also demanding better extension services. On that note, We believe, strengthening extension systems is an essential first step in addressing the crisis in agriculture.

We are proud to share here that Digital Green has been working in Andhra Pradesh since before bifurcation of the state and since November 2015 we’ve been working in all 13 districts with the Department of Ag Govt. of AP.

Our partnership got a shot in the arm with the signing of a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Rikin Gandhi, Executive Director, Digital Green and B.Rajashekar, IAS, Special Chief Secretary, Govt of AP and Hari Jawaharlal (IAS), CEO, Rythu Sadhikara Samstha & Commissioner – Dept of Agriculture, Govt of AP for the new BMGF supported Digital Innovations Project in the state. The project was launched formally on the 15th of November, 2017 in the presence of the Honourable Vice President Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu, Honourable Chief Minister, Nara Chandrababu Naidu & Minister for Agriculture (Govt. of AP), Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy.

 

 

(Additional inputs from Pritam Nanda, T.Surender & V.Kamalakar)

The first time that I heard the term ‘human-centered design’, was when I was doing my PhD and felt that it was another one of those buzzwords – what is being done is simplistic, but is made to sound complex. I did not know then that I would end up using it extensively at my work with Digital Green, and quite successfully too. What has encouraged me to write this series of blog on HCD is that I have used it for over 2 years in my work, which has given me enough time to reflect and make my own meaning of the process. Through these blogs, I capture some of that journey.

Scaling-up and HCD at Digital Green

At Digital Green, a lot of work is centred on developing pieces of training for field-level workers in producing localized videos on agriculture, health and nutrition, and showing those to rural communities. The videos are shown in small groups using a battery-operated pico projector and facilitated by field-level workers. As we scaled, our concern, similar to several organizations’, was maintaining the quality of our training. As we hire more and more trainers, how do we make sure that all of them are training field-level workers effectively? As trainers give more and more training, how do we know what field-level workers are actually learning to an optimal level?

We were looking to develop an innovative training system, where there was some amount of standardization, assurance of quality and learning for the ‘users’ – the field level workers. Several ideas were discussed, pilot projects proposed, strategy documents were written, ‘trial’ training videos made…but somehow things were not moving, and they did not seem quite right. We soon found that there was little space for iterations because there was a confidence that what we are proposing after brainstorming in our office conference room, is going to work with the field-level workers. Thankfully, we decided to change our approach.

Notes from brainstorming sessions

 

What worked for us to get it off the ground

I am a participatory researcher, and when my colleague introduced me to IDEO’s human-centered design approach, it immediately clicked. We extensively used their field guide to help us design our training system. But before I get to how we used it and what came out of it, I want to talk about how we even got started with using it.

One of the biggest questions about some methods, tools and techniques is that if they have been proven to work, then why are more and more people not adopting it? The answer is often the obvious one – it simply does not suit their context and environment. Similarly, every non-profit and its systems might not lend themselves to successfully using HCD, howsoever much they believe in its impact. In our case, it worked for us. The reason for it was a mix of two main ingredients: Attitude and Resources.

ATTITUDE

• Being open to change. Innovation is the cornerstone of HCD. Even if you are “participatory” in your regular work, but not open to creating something completely different, HCD might not work at all. It is an uncomfortable position. We all tend to get used to our regular ways of working (even if they are inefficient or not as effective). In organizations, even a small and simple-looking change might require changing hard-set systems and processes. If an organization is intrigued to try it and make it successful, it has to be open to changes at several levels. Innovation cannot happen in isolation. Being open to change was what helped us wade through the murky waters of innovation.
• Being quick to change and iterate. You cannot want to be innovative and yet be bureaucratic in your way of working. The two just do not support each other. Non-profits can sometimes be more bureaucratic than government agencies, members can pick apart issues more than seasoned academicians, and decisions might never be taken, agreements never reached. At DG, we kept a pretty small team, which was able to work independently, throw away bad ideas, create iterations of prototypes and move on. We committed ourselves to be open to what we learn, and change as we need. This wasn’t without serious arguments on viewpoints of different team members though! It’s funny how quickly we start loving our ideas, and feel such a pain when we figure that it not working. But things which are not working… throw away we must!

RESOURCES

• Tenacity to keep trying even after failing several times. Though this might sound like an attitude, it is not just about having a belief in innovation and keeping an open mindset. It is also to do with funding. How many non-profits have funding that allows them to try and fail? Then try again and fail? It is such an oft-discussed topic that I can probably add nothing new. But, after all, with project targets always chasing you, how many times can you fail? We, luckily, had an empathetic donor, who was happy for us to innovate, who wasn’t asking us why we were failing, but rather what we failed at and how we addressed it. I doubt that without such support, we could have tried being innovative.
• Right human resources. Now, I am not a trained human-centered designer. But I am trained in qualitative and participatory research. Our team also consisted of people who had done IDEO’s online course and we had required subject experts. I am not entirely sure how successful it would have been with an internal team which just tried to follow the guide. There is a lot of stuff written by scholars and practitioners on how participatory methods and training can be treated by researchers/trainers as a technical process and not an empowering approach. The same can hold true for HCD as well. The IDEO.org’s guide does focus a lot on ‘Mindsets’, before it gets down to ‘Methods’, presumably to help people not fall into that same trap. It also suggests building an interdisciplinary team. But, like funding, several non-profits suffer from a lack of good trained human resource. For us, getting the right people together helped like nothing else – a team which knows which are the right methods in which situation, to get to a workable solution.

With these four main things in place, we started on our HCD research. What are the things that worked for you and your team? What do you think about settings and contexts that support HCD?

About a half hours drive outside the bustling town of Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh is the village of Bollavaram. In an area where agriculture is the main form of income, a group of the farmers here is learning how organic farming techniques can lower their expenses and increase their profits through a National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) project. In partnership with the NRLM, Digital Green is helping to train Community Resource People in video recording and facilitated screenings, so they can build the capacity of farmers to pull themselves out of poverty.
Through the project, the Community Resource People work with local smallholder farmers to produce videos on agricultural techniques and best practices for getting the most yield out of the locally grown crops. The videos are then screened to groups of farmers, during which questions and dialogue are encouraged. The Community Resource People then follow up with the farmers to see how they are implementing those techniques and the results the farmers see.

Farmers like Invi Krishna are reaping the benefits of this project. At first, Krishna was not interested in organic farming. Krishna’s family farmed land in Bollavaram for generations. His father was the exception. He became a teacher, but Krishna and his brother decided they would return to farming the family’s eight acres of land to support their families.

Two years ago, Krishna saw that one of his neighbors started farming organically and was saving money. He began attending a few workshops and meetings on the organic farming. Then, he started to attend the group screenings of the videos shown by the Community Resource Person on the farming practices.

“These videos help us to do more and more. If someone tells you how to do something, you hear it, but you don’t always take it in,” explains Krishna.

During the screening, he realized that he owned a cow, so the cow dung and urine used to make the organic pesticide and fertilizer would be free, so he began to slowly incorporate what he learned into his farming practices.

 

Krishna applied the lessons he learned in the videos on how to prepare and apply natural pesticide supplements to his rice and maize. The cow dung and urine and a few other ingredients are mixed, dried, made into flakes and then applied to the soil before sowing. The mixture is reapplied when insects are spotted in the crops. Since using this method, Krishna’s costs for pesticides have gone down. There is a nominal amount of investment for a few natural ingredients, such as cane sugar to enhance fermentation.

Krishna realized that when he was applying the chemicals pesticides, he would get seven to eight quintals per $.40 invested. Using the natural method, he would get 10 quintals per $.40 investment. Now, he uses this organic pesticide on all his crops. He also continues to attend the video screenings to learn new methods.

“With the videos, we see it, and it’s not just seeing the video. We see them as a group, so there is a lot of discussions. It gets absorbed into our brains,” says Krishna. “I watch the videos two or three times, then I put it into practice. It becomes my knowledge.”

The first time she sold her vegetable produce through Digital Green’s new Loop App, in February 2016, Veema Devi of Rajkhavampur village in Samastipur district, Bihar, India, was apprehensive that she would earn as much money as when she sold it herself. Though she had more produce available, she sent only radishes to the market through her aggregator, Devinder Singh. By early afternoon, Devinder returned with her earnings and receipt. The price was competitive, and Veema saved six hours by not traveling to the market herself. Veema now uses Loop regularly, selling radishes, okra, tomatoes, and other vegetables.

Veema devi, one fo the first famers to sell her vegetable produce through Digital Green’s Loop App

 

Smallholder farmers spend a considerable amount of time and money transporting their produce to the nearest market. However, they lack the volume and real-time, comparative pricing information that could yield better prices.

Digital Green launched a pilot project, Loop, in India’s Bihar state in August, 2015, to improve smallholder farmers’ access to markets and to help farmers realize the highest possible income from sale of their vegetables. Under Loop, farmers sell their produce through village level agricultural extension workers, who function as aggregators. Often farmers themselves, the aggregators reach out to fellow farmers to raise awareness about Loop and its operations, recruit farmers to participate, and operationalize Loop’s collection, transport, and sales transactions.

Aggregators collect produce daily, oversee its transport to and sale at market, and disburse payments to farmers. Aggregators are aided by Loop’s mobile application that enables them to record collections, sales, transportation type and costs, and trader details in the form of a digital ledger, and sends farmers receipts by text message when sales are completed. This is supported by an android mobile application by the same name.

A farmer in Bihar, India, collecting bhindi (okra) to be sold through Digital Green’s Loop App

Since the pilot began in August 2015 and until mid January 2016, nearly 1,492 farmers in 77 villages have used Loop to sell 2,672,553 Kgs of their produce. This project is operational in 2 districts, Samastipur and Muzaffarpur of Bihar.Â

Transactions of INR 31,320,419 have been carried out in 1,624 visits by the aggregators to 19 mandis in Bihar.

Beneficiary speaks

Anil Kumar Singh, 35, of Samastipur district, Bihar, India, lives with his wife Poonam Devi have two children who are in school. Anil Kumar has 2.5 bhiga (approx 1.5 acre) land where he grows vegetables like parwal, baingan, kheera etc. He used to go to the mandi (market) by a bicycle. “It was quite uncertain. I was able to sell the produce sometimes, on other days I used to spend the whole day there and come back home in the evening,” he shares. Carrying heavy the load of the vegetables sometimes his bicycle would break down on the way.

Anil Kumar, a beneficiary of Digital Green’s Loop model piloted in Bihar, India

“Now with the Loop vehicle things have become easier for us. Ranjit bhaiya (aggregater) comes and collects the vegetables to take it to the market. Earlier he used to collect it from our house, but now he collects it straight from the farm,” shares Anil Kumar. The time that he saves is used for working harder on the field spraying pesticides and watering the plants, which has helped him improve the yield as well.

“I have used the Loop vehicle at least ten times to send my produce like cabbage, cauliflower, green peas and parwal to the mandi. My vegetables are transported to various markets like Tajpur, Samastipur, Bihar Sharif mandis,” he adds with pride.

“When Ranjit Bhaiya returns from the mandi he comes first to give us the money and a receipt and I also get a message on my mobile phone. Now I dont face any problems in selling my vegetables and now I grow more vegetables than before. I get the payment sitting at home; I dont have to go chasing after them to recover the payment. I have complete trust on Loop,” shares Anil Kumar.

About Digital Green:

Digital Green is a not-for-profit international development organization that uses innovative digital solutions and community engagement to improve lives of the rural poor. Its early roots were formed as a Microsoft Research Project in Bangalore in 2006. The project was part of an effort to test different ways of using technology for social development. This project focused specifically on testing the use of participatory videos as a means of agricultural extension. The approach was substantially more effective as a means of extension than existing conventional agricultural extension programs.

Digital Green has pioneered the use of participatory videos to strengthen behavior change programs in the agriculture domain. Early research showed that this approach used in promoting better agricultural practices and technologies to farmers results in seven times higher adoptions and is ten times more cost effective than traditional systems to reach farmers with agricultural messages.

 

 

A Digital Green case study from Niger on how video-enabled health extension prompts behaviour change

 

Rakiya Idi is 27 years old and has lived with her husband, Idriss Yahaya, in Malam Daweye village in Niger for more than a decade. Like her parents before her, Rakiya is a farmer. Idriss farms and works as a trained video mediator in Malam Daweye. There were no schools in her village growing up, so Rakiya never had the opportunity to access formal education. However, as Malam Daweye has a primary school, her four living children, ages 2 to 12, have the opportunity to go to school. In 2013, Idriss took a second wife, Lantana, 17, and the couple have a 19-month old daughter named Nusaifa. Rakiya and Lantana are close and share household responsibilities for their families.

 

 

 

 

 

Rakiya first encountered Digital Greens video-enabled approach to nutrition and health extension in early 2015. As part of the JSI-led SPRING project, Digital Green and SPRING introduced this approach in Niger following successful piloting in India. Under the guided facilitation of a trained female health extension worker, Rakiya watched videos on the first 1000 days of a healthy child, hand washing, responsive feeding, exclusive breast feeding, complementary feeding, female nutrition, diarrhoea prevention, and harvest planning. Each video, averaging about ten minutes in length, was produced locally and featured fellow Nigeriens demonstrating good practices and behaviours specific to the videos theme.

 

Rakiya still remembers watching the video on hand washing in March 2015, and the discussion led by the female health extension worker. Before watching it, she and her family washed their hands infrequently and only with water, never soap. As she watched the video, which showcased behaviours like washing hands using a tippy tap device after going to the toilet, before cooking, before eating, and before feeding children, she was able to immediately make connections between her familys lack of hygiene and their frequent bouts with stomach aches and diarrhoea. Rakiyas third-born child, a daughter named Saratou, had died at the age of two over five years ago; her death caused in part by diarrhoea.

 

After watching the video, Rakiya literally practiced the steps demonstrated in the video in order to master how to properly wash her hands.  Rakiya says, To be honest, I adopted the practices I saw in the hand washing video immediately because I understood the content and was fully convinced that these small changes could create a positive impact in the life of our family and prevent us from experiencing sickness.

 

Rakiya carried the videos messages and handwashing practices home with her and shared them with Lantana. Lantana was receptive, so Rakiya taught her the steps and invited her to attend the next video dissemination to view the video for herself.

 

Now both on board, Rakiya and Lantana, with help from Idriss, built a tippy tap hand washing station in their compound, based on the guidance provided in the SPRING-Digital Green video, which emphasized sighting the station outside the washroom and kitchen. In doing so, they became among the first households to construct a hand washing station after watching the video. Idriss regularly provides the family with soap, but when they dont have the means to buy it, they use ashes as demonstrated in the video. Hand washing is now regularly practiced by all members of their family, and Rakiya and Lantana report fewer cases of illness and diarrhoea among their family since they started hand washing with soap.

 

 

For her part, Lantana, is grateful that Rakiya brought the message of hand washing into their household. Lantana acknowledges that, I did not know the steps followed in hand washing until I watched the video. I did not use soap, and I used to dry my hands by rubbing them on my clothes instead of a clean, designated cloth.

 

Meanwhile Idriss too says that even at 35 years old and despite working as a mediator for the SPRING-Digital Green project, he never knew that there were steps in hand washing until he watched the video for the first time. Now, he calls it easy, because it has become a part of our daily life.” In his opinion, the hand washing video has been a great tool to convince people that they can make a small but important change.

 

Now many people in Malam Daweye see Rakiya and her family as role models because their hand washing station is properly constructed and used by all members of their family. Their compound has become a de facto demonstration site, with people stopping by their house to see how the hand washing station was constructed and is used. In some instances, even people who were not direct beneficiaries of the videos have built hand washing stations and practice hand washing as the videos messages have spread by word of mouth. Idriss has even received invitations to help people construct their own household hand washing stations.

 

Rakiya proudly reports that hand washing is now common sense to her family members. She says, Before the hand washing video was disseminated, people did not understand and believe hand washing is very important. Now, people are awakened and good change is happening in Malam Daweye. She goes on to say that, SPRING- Digital Green videos are vital to my life and the life of my family because they touch on problems we face every day and offer us clear ways to make easy changes that improve our lives. I learn new things whenever I watch their videos.

 

Through March 2016, Digital Green has screened ten locally-produced videos 873 times to over 1,644 households in 20 villages of Guidan Roumdji and Aguie communes in Maradi region in Niger, as part of a one-year pilot project operated under the JSI-led Strengthening Partnerships, Results, and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING) project, supported by USAID. Approximately 55 households out of 100 participating households in Malam Daweye have constructed hand washing stations in their homes to date.

Contributed by: B.Praveen Kumar, Program Manager, Digital Green, Andhra Pradesh

 

 

Soora Munijanaki, 58, looks like an ordinary farmer. But when an interaction with her goes beyond pleasantries, one finds her knowledge on non-pesticide management (NPM) is akin to an experienced extension professional. She aptly mixes her learning in NPM with positive results from her own farming experience and presents a perspective which one must accept without debate.

 

 

In the course of our conversation, Munijanaki shared that untimely rains in November and December spoilt everyone’s crop in the village except hers. When the rains stopped, the vegetable plantation in her field had withstood the cyclone and started to yield fruit. Its only because of the NPM practices that my plants were strong enough to withstand a natural calamity like the recent cyclone, she says confidently.

 

 

 

 

 

Munijanakis family has three acres of land in Diguva Guluru hamlet in Sirugurajupalem village, Puttur revenue block, Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, where her son, Soora Vijay, 40, helped her, to cultivate paddy on it till three years back. Vijay says We had been applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides on our crop. At the end of every harvest season, when we calculated, our returns barely made up for our expenses. We used to spend INR 15,000 per acre on fertilizers and pesticides and get INR 15,000 -20,000 rupees from selling the produce. Every year more or less, it was the same story. This continued till 2013.

 

 

Srivani, a SERP-CMSA (Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty  Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture) extension functionary and cluster activist in Puttur block, learning of Munijanakis problems in agriculture, visited her field in 2013 along with G. Muniratnam, District Project Manager, SERP-CMSA, Chittoor district. Munijanaki recalled Srivani initially suggested that we shift from mono-cropping ( a practice of growing a single crop) to vegetable poly-cropping ( a practice of growing more than one complimentary crops in the same field). Srivani screened a Digital Green video (a localized community-based video) on vegetable poly-cropping in a small plot of land to encourage adoption of this practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We started cultivating paddy in two acres of our land and vegetables in the remaining one acre. We immediately realized that by doing this we could also get a regular income on a weekly or fortnightly basis – by selling our vegetables in the vegetable market nearby, shared Munijanaki happily. We started growing brinjal, ladies finger, bottle gourd, and bitter gourd. We also grew varieties of leafy vegetables as inter-crop in our vegetable garden, she added.

 

 

Since Munijanaki was a member of the Self-help Group (SHG) that Srivani was in charge of, she has got an opportunity to watch different instructional videos screened by Srivani on various NPM practices, based on the current agricultural seasons. Munijanaki has seen videos on various topics ranging from nursery bed preparation for vegetable cultivation, organic manure preparation to bio-fertilizers. Initially what we knew about natural farming is that it requires only cow-dung and organic waste. But, after watching videos, we have realized that it is much more than that. Every crop disease has a different NPM solution and each solution is different from the other, Munijanaki shared.

 

 

Srivani screens videos twice every week on the preparation of Pachichirotte yeruvulu (green leaf manure), the importance of summer ploughing, Dravajeevamrutham (growth enhancer), Neem kernel extract, Egg-lemon extract, Neemastram, Brhamstram and Agniastram and other such organic fertilizers and pesticides in Diguva Guluru village. She has not only screened videos for the Self-Help Group members, she has often visited our fields and observed whether we are following what they have shown in the videos correctly. She also clarifies our doubts related to those practices, added Vijay.

 

 

Digital Green video dissemination has been quite helpful. It’s easy to convince farmers with video testimonials of other farmers and also to get the right technical information across about each practice says Srivani.

 

 

Information on practices like Brahmastram and Agniastram (organic pesticides) is not easily available to farmers otherwise. This is echoed by Vijay when he shared that Every brinjal crop inadvertently gets affected by stem borer (insect). But, nobody knew what suitable NPM method was available for that. Digital Green produced and screened a video on Brahmastram to SHG members here in my village. My mother also watched it and came home and discussed it. Now, we prepare and spray Brahmastram on our brinjal crop.

 

 

Munijanakis family is now getting a regular income from selling their vegetable produce almost daily in the Putturu vegetable market. Their expenditure on farming has also reduced greatly. Earlier we used to spend INR 15,000 per acre on fertilizers and pesticides apart from labour costs. Now, we only spend on labour that is 6,000 rupees per acre. We prepare all kashayams and bio-fertilizers from the material available in our field, shared Vijay.

 

 

Continuous follow-up and timely solutions from SERP-CMSA functionaries have also helped Munijanaki immensely. I have visited this farm regularly. We have supported Munijanaki in all possible ways. More importantly, the Digital Green approach of using a short video on each practice helped to transfer appropriate information to beneficiaries in a timely manner. Munijanakis farm is among the best NPM fields in our district, says G.Muniratnam, District Project Manager, SERP-CMSA.

 

 

Munijanaki adds Since we are growing vegetables using the NPM methods, we have become popular in and around my village. Everybody – doctors, teachers, and government employees come to our field to purchase vegetables. We even get orders for vegetables for local functions.A doctor in our neighbouring village recommends his patients to buy vegetables from our farms because he himself buys from us. He says generic ailments like diabetes and muscle pains can be prevented by consuming fresh vegetables and fresh food, she adds with pride.

 

 

Munijanakis success did not come in a day. We learnt about NPM practices step-by-step by watching Digital Green videos. Each video has a lot of relevant information. We discussed the NPM practices during our video screening sessions and started practising them in our field. It has now started giving us positive results, she added.

 

 

Though Soora Munijanakis success might look small in nature, it is, in fact, a bright spot on a larger landscape of small subsistence farmers in rural India. One that we hope will fill up the landscape to shine the light of organic NPM practices in the rest of the country and the world.

 

 

(The author of this story wishes to acknowledge support from G.Venkat Goud, Program Manager, Digital Green and G.Muniratnam, District Project Manager, SERP-CMSA.)