e-agriculture promising practice -...

e-Agriculture Promising Practice Grameen Foundation’s

FarmerLink

December 2017

Grameen Foundation’s FarmerLink program combines satellite data and farm data collected by mobile-‐equiped field agents to help coconut farmers increase productivity, deal with crop pests and diseases and increase the sustainability of their farms.

FarmerLink is an innovative digital solution that offers smallholder coconut farmers in the Philippines access to precious information that previously was not available.

The technological solution was developed using human-‐centered design and in collaboration with trusted intermediaries to ensure the farmers would be able to overcome usability challenges they often face when using mobile services.

Driving coconut smallholder productivity and resilience through digital technology

• Location: Davao region, Philippines

• ICT used: SMS messages on mobile phones, tablets and smartphones

• Area of work: Coconut production

• Target group: Coconut farmers

• Stakeholders: Grameen Foundation, agricultural partners and solution providers

• Timeframe: December 2015 to June 2017

Key Facts

©FAO/Jeanette Van Acker

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needed agricultural services and measuring program efficacy. Finally, financial institutions want to serve the smallholder farmers, but without visibility into their agricultural performance, they struggle to overcome the perceived risks associated with financing agriculture. During Grameen Foundation’s initial research, only 5% of the farmers interviewed in Davao were active in a cooperative and they rarely receive any type of support for trading and consolidation of their products. Because of this lack of organization the government tried to form farmer-‐based organizations, but most remain informal groups and only a small percentage turn into registered cooperatives. Grameen Foundation’s FarmerLink, is an innovative digital solution suite that strengthens the entire coconut ecosystem to increase the productivity and income of coconut smallholder farmers and drive more coconut smallholder farmer’s sales to formal buyers offering higher prices. To do so, FarmerLink supports both supply and demand: they help smallholder farmers increase their productivity and quality of harvest, and help institutions increase their efficiencies in sourcing coconut and offering financing. To reach the goals, Grameen Foundation formed a strategic alliance of private and public sector partners committed to serving farmers through digital solutions. The digital solutions help farmers produce coconuts more efficiently and sustainably by giving them access to previously unreachable information. This information includes weather or natural disaster updates and warnings of pests or diseases that might harm their crops unexpectedly. The previous lack of this information resulted in farmers being unable to best tend to their crops that are negatively impacted by pests, weather and other challenges.

With 60 percent living at or below the poverty line,

coconut smallholder farmers are among the poorest in

agriculture.

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Context and problem addressed by ICTs

Although coconut is a multi-‐billion dollar export industry in the Philippines, coconut smallholder farmers (SHFs) experience little benefit. With 60% living at or below the poverty line, coconut smallholder farmers are among the poorest in agriculture.

The smallholder farmers struggle to drive productivity given a lack of access to extension services. The farmers reach an average of 43 nuts/tree/year, which is one quarter of high-‐producing countries like Puerto Rico at 188 nuts/tree/year. Hundred percent of the coconut smallholder farmers report that their farms are affected by pests and diseases, but they lack knowledge on pest and disease management. They also lack aceess to appropriate financial products and services: only 11% of the farmers have savings, and 66% of the farmers rely on families and friends for financing improvements to farm quality and yield. Finally, few farmers have direct market access. Although coconut smallholder farmers often have 1to 2 loyal buyers, they are typically traders that drive down prices and offer little, if any, training on market standards.

Institutions struggle to serve coconut smallholder farmers, too. Formal buyers want more nuts from the farmers, yet they lack visibility into supply and quality often fails to meet international market standards. Government institutions supporting agriculture lack efficient ways of delivering much-‐

Authors: Kyla Mittal, Lee Babcock and Lisa Kienzle – Grameen Foundation

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©Grameen Foundation


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The development of the ICTs used: android-‐based mobile software solution To enable FarmerLink partners to better understand the needs of smallholder farmers and provide them with cost-‐efficient technical assistance, access to markets, and access to financial services, Grameen Foundation designed and is leveraging an innovative android-‐based mobile software solution.

FarmerLink partners such as Franklin Baker, the Philippine Coconut Authority, and People’s Bank of Caraga have field officers trained in agronomy and equipped with a suite of mobile applications that enable them to collect and disseminate information on a real-‐time basis including:

• Farmer profiles: Data is collected on the socio-‐economic situation, production, access and use of financial services, and adoption of good agricultural practices (GAP)by farmers. This enables the partners to develop smallholder farmer profiles and target interventions, based on their needs.

• Farm Management Plan (FMP): After agents assess good agricultural practices adoption levels, farmers are monitored using the Farm Management Plan application. Farmers are provided immediate feedback on good agricultural practices adoption from agents.

• Organic inspection tool: Like the FMP, agents use the organic inspection tool to track

1,525 coconut farmers receive the full solution suite:

they have been profiled and

receive intensive, bi-monthly one-on-

one farm support from our partners’

agents

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farmers’ adherence to organic certification standards and provide real-‐time compliance coaching.

• Harvest monitoring: The harvest monitoring tool tracks production data and forecasts the anticipated enabling Franklin Baker to plan based on specific information on where and from whom they can source.

• Early Warning System: The early warning system (EWS) makes use of GPS coordinates and other data pulled from farmer profiles combined with satellite data to alert farmers that are likely to be affected by extreme weather, pest and disease issues. The Early Warning System sends free SMS messages to farmers to warn them of upcoming events that could potentially harm their crops, and the system offers practical recommendations to the farmers to reduce risks.

FarmerLink’s solution recognizes the importance of the human touch to complement the use of digital technology. It is designed around trusted intermediaries (16 agents from Franklin Baker (the private sector buyer), 31 agents from Philippines Coconut Authority (government entity) and 4 agents from People’s Bank of Caraga (bank)) to help farmers overcome usability challenges they often face when using mobile services. Grameen Foundation implemented two types of interventions with the partners on the ground. The first type of intervention is considered a light touch approach and involved providing SMS-‐based agriculture extension to farmers. Philippine Coconut Authority agents used the mobile 3



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tools to register farmers who will receive this intervention. Once farmers are registered, they receive a welcome message from FarmerLink followed by bi-‐weekly reminders and tips on good agricultural practices, pest and disease management and financial literacy. If certain conditions for weather, pest and diseases are met, an alert is also triggered and an SMS is sent directly to the farmers phone to give the farmer more information on the condition, and more importantly, the practical recommendation that they can follow to mitigate risks in their farm. The second type of intervention is a much more intensive process where SMS-‐based extension is coupled with one-‐to-‐one visits and coaching sessions with agents. Franklin Baker and People’s Bank of Caraga agents were tasked perform these visits with the farmers registered in the program. Apart from the SMS services described above, farmers received bi-‐monthly visits from the agents. During these visits, the farm management plan, the organic inspection tool and harvest monitoring tools are used by the field agents to provide immediate feedback to the farmers and respond to their questions, especially those related to pests and diseases and managing their finances. Farmers were also given calendars so that they can record the tips given to them during these interactions.

Impact The program exceeded its outreach targets. As of June 30, 2017, there were 26,732 smallholder coconut farmers who received SMS-‐based extension on good agricultural practices, pest and disease management and financial literacy. When applicable, they also received alerts from the Early Warning System. At the household level (with five members in a household), this represents 133,660 people, or 3% of the total population of the region in which FarmerLink operated. 1,525 coconut farmers receive the full solution suite: they have been profiled and receive intensive, bi-‐monthly one-‐on-‐one farm support from our partners’ agents. There were also 3,291 farmers who received ‘too dry’ alerts and were advised to water their trees and practice mulching.

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Based on the short trial period of the program, there have been positive results that demonstrate progress in driving behavior change of farmers and increasing the efficiencies of our partners: Smallholder farmer change: • GAP adoption: Comparing treatment and

control groups, the program found higher increases in full adoption rates in the treatment group in 6 of 9 good agricultural practices promoted in the program. In addition, there were also higher increases in partial adoption rates in the treatment group for 7 of 9 practices.

• Action taken in response to EWS: The program tested SHF opinions and actions taken as a result of receiving EWS notifications. 86% of SHF said they learned appropriate actions to take; 58% of them then implemented the action (41% said they were already doing the action before the received the alert).

Partner change: • Agency efficiency: To evaluate efficiency the

program conducted an activity-‐based costing (ABC) exercise. By using digitized vs. manual processes, our ABC study showed that agents reduced time to inspect farmers by 62% (37 to 14 minutes per plot); inspectors can now reach 2 farmers/day, up from the current 1 farmer/day, enabling agents to double their annual outreach targets.

Innovation and success factors The FarmerLink program and its use of mobile technologies, contribute to increased farming productivity. Several factors contributed to the success of the program: • Action-‐oriented Early Warning System: While

other early warning systems exist, none provide farmers actionable information on steps to take to mitigate the impending risk. The FarmerLink solution ensures farmers can be resilient to shocks.

• Technology-‐enabled extension and certification compliance: Before FarmerLink, farmers had to wait for feedback on their adoption of GAP or on their adherence to certification standards.


Constraints The FarmerLink program was designed around several constraints: • Access and connectivity: FarmerLink requires

access to basic mobile technology. In Davao, some farmers didn’t own phones, and those who did, didn’t always have a mobile signal in their area. As a result, program outreach was not possible in some areas of the region. Some provinces within the scope of the program had 17% to 24% of their municipalities without mobile phone coverage. A next phase of the program may consider radio outreach to complement the use of mobile phones, an approach with promising results in other Grameen Foundation programs in West Africa.

• Timeframe to implement: The program was funded for an 18-‐month period, which meant that by the time the solution was built, there was only approximately one year to pilot the solution left. A year is quite short to see farm-‐level results and develop the case for commercial partners to maintain the solution.

• Public sector timing: FarmerLink worked with public and private sector partners. While the commercial partner was quick to launch, the government was slower, which led to delays in fully deploying the solution.

• Farmer heterogeneity: Farmer heterogeneity is an important factor considered in the program design but it also makes the program more complex. The mobile tools created were meant to capture unique challenges of farmers and to enable field officer to give relevant and actionable advice based on a specific situation.

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Tablet-‐enabled agents with access to a database of information have the capacity to provide real-‐time, on-‐the-‐spot guidance to farmers.

• Field-‐testing content: The program’s solution used iterative design principles to develop and deliver the tech tools and content. Content was tested repeatedly with users before deployment. Data was mined to make the solution more relevant to farmers in subsequent iterations. For example, if we saw low adoption in a GAP (like salt application) in one iteration, the information being shared by SMS would be adopted in the next iteration to focus on that GAP. Continuous learning based on intelligent data mining increased the success for farmers.

• Business intelligence for People’s Bank of Caraga: Farm-‐level data collected by Franklin Baker was provided, with consent of the farmers, to the bank partner of the program. This information has helped the partner build a viable pipeline of farmers for their agricultural loan product.

• Provision of financial as well as agricultural training: Agents of the program delivered financial literacy training and provided overviews of bank products at People’s Bank of Caraga. Qualitative feedback from the farmers noted that they very much valued the financial information. Some farmers noted that they were now able to see the relation between the farm expenses and farm improvement, and that the advice on saving over time helped them learn to save for inputs.

There have been many programs that attempted to reach rural farmers in developing countries, but many initiatives are policy-‐based and aimed at governments and large institutions rather than targeting individual farmers. These programs often also target the financial side and provide funding to increase investments through lines of credit, insurance for crop loss, leasing of equipment, and more. These types of programs offer a more general model framework and not a customizable model nor direct-‐to-‐farmer interventions, like the FarmerLink program does.

Smallholder coconut farmers are not a homogenous group. This makes the

design of the tools more complex as they have to

capture unique challenges of farmers.


Combining SMS and human agent outreach yield the highest levels

of full adoption of good agricultural

practices

Lessons learned • SMS can drive positive behavior change: Two

types of interventions were tested: one intervention offering agricultural information via SMS, and another combining SMS with human agent outreach. Both were measured against a control group and evaluation found, not surprisingly, that a combination of human interaction and SMS messages yielded the highest levels of full adoption of GAPs. However, the use of SMS message alone yielded the highest percentage of partial adoption of GAPs, suggesting that, while human interaction in complement to technology results in more complete adoption, significant gains can be made at a lower cost by using SMS alone.

• Technology can drive efficiency gains that decrease costs for partners: Private sector partner agents reduced time to inspect farms by 62% using this technology, which equates to cost savings of $3,600 USD/per agent/per year, or $50,000 USD across the organization.

• The power of the ICT is in the human that is using it. The technology used strengthens the prior knowledge of the agents and makes communication easier. It is crucial that the agents are trusted by the farmers.

• Farms are both farms and family businesses. It’s important to consider all members of a family and their roles in the farming process, especially women/girls. We found that women in SHF coconut households are usually in control of the finances. Having discussions and consulting sessions with them is important.

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Sustainability FarmerLink is designed to be environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. First, it is environmentally sustainable because better farming strategies and techniques will help to protect the soil, create on-‐time harvests, and teach farmers how to protect their crops. There is also a push towards becoming fair trade or organic certified farms, which not only has the potential to make their products more appealing to consumers or suppliers, but also preserves the environment (for example, through the use of organic inputs). Secondly, the program is creating a social impact for the farmer by helping him to improve his productivity, diversify the incomes from his farm and byconnecting them with formal buyers, which over time will lead to increased income. In the pilot early evidence of behavior change was seen, but the implementation has only been ongoing for a year so there is a need to evaluate over time if the changes are sustained. Finally the program is looking at a hybrid approach to long-‐term sustainability by working with two partner payers to take up and support components of the solution. Grameen Foundation is working with the private sector (coconut buyer and bank) to ultimately encourage them to pay for and scale the full android-‐based solution suite with their clients and fee-‐for-‐service engagements. The program is also working with the government to identify a fee model for them to support the continuity of the registration and early warning system.



Farmer’s story “My father used to teach me everything about

farming. But now that he is gone, I look at

FarmerLink for guidance. The text messages, calendar

and monthly check-‐ups of Agent Charity help me

improve my ways. Now, I regularly do weeding,

mulching and I no longer burn the husks. I also keep a

record of my activities and harvests on the calendar

that they gave me.” – Marvin Loreniana, coconut

farmer, Davao del Sur (video:

https://youtu.be/eVBLv2j-‐

QIA?list=PLtOB88klbMt9eJfZ0e4fUndEUgV6Lcz83)

“I received a text alert saying that during the

prolonged dry period, we must water our plants and

apply mulch at the base of trees. I applied the

recommendations since I also observed that it hasn’t

rained for some time. The advice was really helpful.

Our cacao plants survived.” – Cristita Florentino,

coconut and cacao farmers, Davao del Sur (video:

https://youtu.be/xjK1Sas2jIc?list=PLtOB88klbMt9e

JfZ0e4fUndEUgV6Lcz83 )

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A year of active pilot is a short period of time to transition from field-‐tests to full sustainability, and therefore the program is seeking support for additional time to refine and transition the solution fully. During the transition phase, partners will be trained to develop relevant content for farmers and to use analyzed data in their operations so that they may be able to sustain the services for farmers. New standard operating processes and change management practices will also be co-‐created with partners to ensure pathways to sustainability.

Replicability and upscaling After the upfront donor-‐funded investment, there are significant replication and scale opportunities across markets and value chains for FarmerLink:

• Local coconut value chain growth: With the current partners, Grameen Foundation is looking to standardize and simplify the solution into standard operational processes to make it easier for the partners to scale the solution across their own organization. The program is also creating a pipeline of additional buyers in coconut in the Philippines who would take up this solution. It would be an exact replication of the tools being offered to partners on a commercial basis.

• International coconut value chain growth: To take FarmerLink to new markets, the content and language would need to be adjested but the data structures would not require changing. This is envisioned as a next step after refining local scale.

• New value chains, outside coconut: To work in different value chains, the content would need to change, but as with the prior point, the data structures would not require change.

Cross-‐sector partnerships are necessary to replicate the program where interests across government entities, value chain players and financial services providers are aligned.

Contact:

Ana Herrera, Program Manager, Mobile Agriculture, Grameen Foundation

[email protected]


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About the authors

Kyla Mittal is an under graduate senior studying Economics at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her work At Grameen Foundation consists of conducting research around the mobile agriculture projects all over the globe.

Lee Babcock, PhD, MBA is a recognized digital finance leader and international consultant with robust private sector, non-‐profit and private-‐sector collaboration that drives locally sustainable initiatives in rural areas that generate a return on investment. He has written numerous publications and delivered many presentations on the topic of insertion of digital finance in rural economies.

Liza Kienzle is the Global Director of Financial Services for Grameen Foundation, where she drives the organization’s financial services strategy and oversees engagements with a range of financial services and digital financial service providers to develop new approaches to reaching the poor.

Resources • Agnoletto, Judith. Farmer With Mobile Device. 2017. Philippines. • Babcock, Lee. “About”. LHB Associates. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 June 2017. • Denise Peña. “FarmerLink (BBC media event).” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 16 May 2017. Web. 26

June 2017. • Gatti, Gigi, and Tina Hipolito. “Bringing Coconut Farmers into the 21st Century Through Mobile Agriculture.”

Food Tank. N.p., 06 Feb. 2017. Web. 26 June 2017. • Grameen Foundation. “FarmerLink – Providing support to farmers in the Philippines.” Online video clip.

YouTube. YouTube, 27 July 2016. Web. 26 June 2017. • Kienzle, Liza. GAP Graph. 2017. Philippines. • Simeon, Louise Maureen. “Agriculture Catches up with Mobile Technology.” The Philippine Star. N.p.,

11 Sept. 2016. Web. 26 June 2017. • Win, Thin Lei. “How to Milk the Coconut Boom? Philippine Farmers Check Their Phones.” Reuters.

Thomson Reuters, 10 May 2017. Web. 26 June 2017

E-‐AGRICULTURE CALL FOR GOOD AND PROMISING PRACTICES This document was developed in the framework of the 2017 e-‐Agriculture Call for Good and Promising Practices on the use of ICTs for Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA). e-‐Agriculture is always happy to review your good or promising practices! You can submit a proposal, following the sections in this document to e-‐[email protected] Would you like to stay informed? Register to become a member of the e-‐Agriculture Community of Practice: www.e-‐agriculture.org/user/register Good and Promising Practices on the use ICT for agriculture in collaboration with

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