RE: The Forum of Agricultural Research in Africa
Francois Stepman
PS2. I will be in London on 27/10 to discuss with OneWorld how their LifeLines India project (use of mobile phone in Hindi for agricultural extension services) can be applied to Africa. Information service for rural farmers in India amo...
Verzonden: do 16/10/2008 11:05
Aan: Francois Stepman
CC: Bernadette Huizinga; Denise Senmartin
Onderwerp: FW:The Forum of Agricultural Research in Africa
Hé François,
A voice from the past here, your old room mate calling!
Wanted to ask how you are doing these days, but given that we are in the loop with some of the activities you are undertaking I assume it must go well.
As you can see below we have shared your work on an inventory of projects about audio based farmer information systems and on agricultural information on demand using mobile phone. And of course we were very pleased to see the mention of IICD with some examples! Thanks for that.
We got quite some positive response internally, as we are obviously working in the same fields.
Bernadette Huizinga, one of my colleagues who works on capacity development in Ghana, showed a specific interest. She would like to ‘expose’ our livelihood projects to some new opportunities of ICT for their sector besides the market price information systems we have now. She had been looking at a means of getting access to that information and knowledge and wanted to involve experts, preferably from Ghana.
Hence, she would really like to get in contact with you to see how FARA and IICD partners could connect.
If possible, Bernadette would like to meet with you on her next visit to Ghana, which will be from November 24th till December 4th.
We would really appreciate if you would have a possibility to meet and discuss.
I copied Bernadette on this message – and also my Thematic Networks colleague Denise Senmartin who is the livelihoods ‘champion’ - so you can follow up with her directly if you like.
I personally find it really nice to link to you again! Hope we can keep it up.
All the best,
Judith
Judith Veldhuizen
Officer Knowledge Sharing
International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD)
P.O. Box 11586, 2502 AN The Hague, The Netherlands
Visitors: Raamweg 5, 2596 HL The Hague
Phone: 00-31-(0)70-311 73 11
Fax: 00-31-(0)70-311 73 22
www.iicd.org www.iconnect-online.org
People - ICT - Development
From: Judith Veldhuizen [mailto:JVeld...@iicd.org]
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 3:21 PM
To: IICD Thematic Learning Community - Livelihood Opportunities
Subject: [tlc-livelihoods] The Forum of Agricultural Research in Africa
For your information and possible response:
(PS: IICD is mentioned with an example, PS2: request is made by a former IICD employee :o)
The Forum of Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA-Accra) is currently working on an inventory of projects about audio based farmer information systems and on Agricultural Information on Demand using mobile phone.
We are particularly interested in Farmer Information Systems in Africa which are going beyond Market Information Systems.
1. Voice enabled information delivery services
A telephone based information delivery service that provides guidance on improved farming methods and advice on market access to improve the lives of rural farming communities. Answers to many of these problems may well be on the internet but with connectivity, literacy and language barrier, this is way beyond the reach of the vast majority. So a simple telephone community fixed phone or mobile serves as the medium of information exchange, while sophisticated communication technology and computing applications have been configured at the back-end platform to provision of requisite information service. The solution comprises of a unified messaging platform incorporating Interactive Voice Response (IVR) functionality, integrated with a Customer Relationship Management application to support integrated call handling and management of very large audio database.
Example: Interactive Voice Recording Systems (IVR) and pre-recorded Question and Answer Services (QAS) is used since since 2006 in India using Hindi. LifeLines India (< OneWorld South Asia)
2. National farmers information services
National Farmers Information Services are a promising new field of research and application in the emerging field of e-agriculture.
Example: Such a pilot project, The National Farmers Information Service (NAFIS), was launched in Kenya on 29 April 2008 to enable farmers receive timely agriculture information through their mobile phones in national languages Kiswahili and English. This project will develop comprehensive tools and resources to improve the versatility and user-friendliness of NAFIS. These are text-to-speech systems, Automatic Speech Recognition systems, multilingual agricultural terminology banks, easily-navigable agricultural content and an expert system to make NAFIS user-driven and hence more responsive to farmers' queries.
3. Dial-up radio: agricultural information on demand
A series of short segment audio programs that provide small-scale farmers telephone access to relevant information through an automated voice system. This “dial-up” radio system is an information hub featuring a regularly updated, diverse menu of pre-recorded agricultural content.
Example: Kubatana - the Zimbabwean NGO Network Alliance Project. This project will develop pre-recorded agricultural content in Shona, Ndebele and English and a series of flexible audio magazines that will enable farmers to leave messages and ask questions thereby creating two-way communication with other farmers, suppliers, consumers, transport networks, support services and agricultural extension workers.
4. Extension services based on mobile phone and database monitoring
A media channel that allows anyone anywhere to affordably share market information via mobiles. By tracking activities and profiles, the service becomes a crucial profiling and business monitoring tool, as well as an advertising medium. By focusing on profiling, this service that can minimize risk in transactions, offer some brokerage services, and provide a revenue stream by permitting advertising and data mining. To date, most licensees have been donor projects.
Example: TradeNet began development in 2005, but was officially launched in 2007. TradeNet’s BusyLab has spent three years building an openAPIstructure which allows any entrepreneur to leverage their network of users and mobile operators and get a service launched quickly. TradeNet projects to be operational in 25 countries by 2011.
5. E-learning for basic skills, agricultural education and market information
The provision of information and learning material for market and agricultural skills.
Example 1: Collecting and Exchanging of Local Agriculture Content (CELAC) is a project of BROSDI (Busoga Rural Open Source and Development Initiative) aiming at use of ICT methods and knowledge sharing to enhance poverty reduction and food security. CELAC operates in all the four regions in Uganda. The CELAC Project seeks to collect and exchange this local agricultural content that works from the farmers.
Example 2: Fruiléma, a business venture consisting of 5 mango producers, recently launched a web platform with help from the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) - an international NGO based in the Netherlands and Manobi - a private sector company based in Senegal. The platform enables potential buyers to follow the whole production chain, right from where and how the mango was grown to as far as the company that is offering them for sale. Thanks to this platform, the fruits sold by Fruiléma can be compared with the quality criteria defined by GlobalGap (formerly known as EurepGap); a European certificate that guarantees insights into the origin of the product, the way it was grown, the circumstances under which it was grown, the way it was treated (fertilizers, pesticides), and how it was packaged, etc. The platform will help Fruiléma enter new markets and should attract new importers for their produce.
6. Video based approaches
The video based approach has several important advantages to traditional forms of agricultural content, which is typically not in the local language, intended for a literate audience, uses expert terminology, lacks grassroots level practicalities, and remains inaccessible in a sea of scattered media.
Example: Digital Green is an agricultural training and advising system in India that seeks to benefit rural farmers by disseminating targeted information through digital videos. Digital Green aims to build a system that can scale agricultural advising support to even the smallest subsistence farmer. Digital Green bootstraps on the local expert knowledge of existing NGOs and farmers by capturing and distributing the widest selection of content in the most targeted, practically-oriented format videos.
If anyone can come up with other inspiring examples, please feel free!
The Global Summit about Mobile Technology for Social Impact - Johannesburg, South Africa - http://www.mobileactive08.org/agenda - October 13-15, 2008
Contact: Francois STEPMAN
E-mail: fstepman(a)fara-africa.org
Judith Veldhuizen
Officer Knowledge Sharing
International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD)
P.O. Box 11586, 2502 AN The Hague, The Netherlands
Visitors: Raamweg 5, 2596 HL The Hague
Phone: 00-31-(0)70-311 73 11
Fax: 00-31-(0)70-311 73 22
www.iicd.org www.iconnect-online.org
People - ICT - Development
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