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Phase 1

Learning/Consultation

Process

AGCommons

Results of Scan and West African Outreach

16-27 March 2009

Jennifer.barnes@ch2m.com

Overview

Outreach Approach

What We Heard in West Africa

Key Observations or Findings

Potential Projects

2

Outreach Objectives

Understand existing information and

infrastructure

ID farmers information needs

Get to know potential partners

3

Outreach Approach

Scan of existing organizations and programs

Individual meeting with stakeholders

Mini-workshops

Field visits

4

Outreach Locations

West Africa

– Mali

– Burkina Faso

– Ghana

CSI Meeting

Rome

Washington DC

East Africa

– Kenya

– Uganda

– Rwanda

West Africa Outreach Stakeholders

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Government Agencies

Ag Research/ Finance

NGOs/ Tech Companies

Farmers Associations

Farmer

IGM

Ministry of Ag

Univ. of Bamako

IER

ICRISAT

IFDC

Afribone

DNA

SLM Project

APCAM

AOPP

CNOP

IGB

SONAGESS

DENAG

SISA

AP/CONEDD

IFDC

DGPSE/MRA

IABER

SIGET-A

ROPPA

Pag-La-Yiri

FENOP

Survey Dept

CSIR

Ministry of Ag

Cocoa Board

SRID

NASRDA

IWMI

ADB

CERSGIS

ADRA

TIPCEE

MiDA

esoko

FONG

Individual Meetings

Types of Questions

Existing agricultural data

Current information provided

to farmers

Current ICT infrastructure out

to farmers

Similar programs and activities

Other information that could

help farmers increase income

Potential challenges

Specific information needs and

challenges of female farmers

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Field visit to Reo Village area

Burkina Faso

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Mini-Workshop

Introductions

Presentation on

AGCommons

– Discussion

Small Group

Exercise

– Identification of

potential projects

– Female Farmers

Wrap up

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What We Heard – Sound bytes

“Who would I need

information from, I am

the farmer here”

– Farmer in Reo village,

Burkina Faso

“We have failed to

meet the needs of the

farmers by providing

location-specific

information”

– IER, Mali

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What We Heard – Sound bytes

“We have not

discussed the aspect of

providing information

to women farmers”

– Pag-La-Yiri, Burkina Faso

“Farmers need to see

proof that new

technologies work;

climate risk is so big

that trust is hard to

establish”

– Ministry of Agriculture,

Statistics, Burkina Faso

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What We Heard - Sound bytes

“Location-specific pest monitoring could cut in half

the quantity of pesticides required to cotton crops

and directly impact farmer’s bottom line”

– Agriculture Development Bank (ADB), Ghana

“Applying location intelligence to existing market

information systems, would reduce the length and

number of messages, thereby reducing costs for

farmers to access information”

– esoko, Ghana

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What We Heard - Sound bytes

“An accurate calculation for the area of a farmer’s

plot can save them up to 40 percent on inputs”

– ADB and TIPCEE

“The timeliness of information is critical to value it

can provide to farmers. They need market price

information at the moment of harvest. If there is

something that they want and need more than the

best price for their products, it is cash in hand.”

– TIPCEE

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Existing Information Dissemination

Structures

Farmers’ organizations exist that link the farmer to

national government

Value chain optimization focused on fertilizer inputs

Examples where location-specific information

services have effectively supported a specific crop

or set of crops

Market price dissemination networks (TV, Radio,

SMS, e-mail, community bulletin boards)

Local mapping capacities

Lack of information scaled and

distributed to the farmer level

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Government Agencies

Donors/ NGOs

Research organizations

Information being produced at

the national and regional level

AGCommons will provide location-

specific information to the farmer

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Farmers

Climate

Market

Inputs

Farmer Value/Information Chain

Deciding Planting GrowingHarvesting/ Transport

Selling

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Information Needs

• Price

• Availability

• Suitability

• Credit

Data Sources

• Market intelligence

• Soils , water and climate data

• Credit offers

Providers

• Agric Ministry

• Other Gov

• Farmer’s Assoc.

• Ag Research

• Local NGOs

• Intl Dev Orgs

• Financial institutions

• Extension Workers

Information Needs

• Sowing date

• Preparation advice

• Soil fertility advice

• Pest and disease management advice

Data Sources

• Rainfall forecasts

• Cultivation best practices

• Soil information service

Providers

• Agric Ministry

• Farmer’s Association

• Ag Research

• Extension Workers

Information Needs

• Pest and disease mitigation advice

• Crop management advice

• Irrigation advice

Data Sources

• Pest and disease monitoring and forecasts

• Rainfall forecasts

Providers

• Farmer’s associations

• Other Gov

• Ag Research

• Local NGOs

• Extension Workers

Information Needs

• Price

• Storage cost and availability

• Transport cost and availability

Data Sources

• Storage, market and trade hub locations

• Market prices and storage costs

Providers

• Financial institutions

• Farmer’s Assoc.

• Ag Research

• Local NGOs

• Extension workers

Information Needs

• Price

• Market/trader location

• Travel cost and availability

Data Sources

• Market prices by location and product

• Travel cost surface

Providers

• Extension workers

• Other Gov

• Local NGOs

• Financial Institutions

Information that helps smallholder

farmers

Strengthening agriculture value chains

– Inputs (seed, fertilizer and pesticide)

– Market intelligence

Selection of appropriate crops

– Soil data

– Rainfall

Support for crop management

– Location and crop specific cultivation advice

– Early warning systems for pests and disease

– Climate change and rainfall predictability

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Building trust with farmers is critical to their

acceptance of information

Challenges exist to provide

information to help farmers

Current data is not provided in map- or time-scales

that are relevant to farmer

Lack of effective networks and channels to

disseminate information to farmers

– Government extension agents are not working

Land tenure issues make it difficult for farmers to

invest in their land

– Electricity for charging cell phones in rural areas

needs to be provided for (solar solutions)

Many past efforts didn’t last past project funding

Local languages

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Challenges for Women Farmers

Providing information to women farmers is

difficult and requires special focus

– Men own the radios and the cell phones

– Men attend the farmers meetings

– Most women farmers are illiterate

Cultural aspects of engaging women

farmers, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso

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How AGCommons will help address

these challenges

Build shared platform

– Hosting for data dissemination

– Core location services

– Access to low-cost and high-resolution imagery for a

variety of applications

Develop dissemination channels

– Build upon existing information networks and

infrastructure

– Spatially enable information dissemination

– Create SMS interfaces for information delivery and

collection to and from farmers

Specific Projects 21

Potential AGCommons projects

Convening on market intelligence

– Adding location intelligence to existing systems

– Scaling out and replicating local successes

regionally

Plot level mapping

– Using imagery and GPS to map specific

cropping systems critical for food security or

highly susceptible to climate stress

– Direct reduction of farmers’ costs by knowing

accurate acreage for services they paid for

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Potential AGCommons projects

Land use map at a scale relevant to farmers

to help manage conflicts at the national level

Agricultural atlas

– Assemble layers specifically relevant to

farmer decision-making

– Identify and prioritize gaps for further data

development

Potential site-specific projects

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Rehabilitation of cocoa farms in

eastern region of Ghana

Information

Farm location

Area under cultivation

No of trees per farm

Soil information

Age class of trees

Location of marketing

centers (depots)

Location of social

amenities

Communication Channels

Extension services

– spatial analysis to

reinvigorate extension

resources

FM radio station

Farmer field schools

Video viewing centers

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Support for women Fisher-woman

in coastal Ghana

Information

Market information

– Where to sell/buy

– Price in various markets

(major)

– Market demand

Location of storage

facilities

– Distance to nearest facility

– Charges

– Conditions

Communication Channels

Farmers associations

SMS through mobile

phones

Farmer representatives

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Develop a women’s producer

association in Nyamina, Mali

Information

Transportation

networks

Location of

microfinance

institutions

Location of storage

facilities

Communication Channels

Develop local

information centers

Monthly meetings

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Rationale: women farmers lack information on choice

of seeds / varieties and on fruit / vegetable storage

methods

Discussion

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Mapping Parties

Mapping Parties and Crowdsource Capacity

Building

– Organize 3-5 informal mapping parties

representing West, East and Southern

Africa to map roads and agriculture

features

– Build capacity and act as catalyst to

dormant GIS communities across Africa.

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Hosting Extensions

Develop Extensions into Shared Hosting

– Read/Write capabilities from international

SMS shortcodes

– Develop repository for crowd mapping and

other location based data.

– Publish shared web services

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Geospatial Interoperability

Develop geospatial publishing

– Write data directly from GIS clients (ESRI,

uDig, Other) to Geonetwork metadata portal.

– Publish and read directly to GIEWS

Workstation

– Publish and read directly from AgroMaps

– Publish and read directly from shared hosting

environment

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Agriculture Mobile Services

Agriculture Geospatial Information Services for SSA

– Develop “location intelligence” services and APIs that

provide core functions for location referencing and

spatial analyses

– Create SMS interface to services both for information

delivery to farmers and information collection from

farmers

– Provide localized versions of products in national

languages

– Distribution of datasets and training at CLICs and

ABIPs

– Capacity building and training programs to support

use and maintenance. 31