Delivering Livestock Knowledge to Indian Farmers through mobile phones

Presented by Sagarika Gandhi

Session: Driving livestock development with ICTs ICT4Ag International Conference, Kigali, Rwanda

4-8 November 2013

Purpose of the project

Providing smallholder farmers with access to actionable,

relevant and timely information on livestock through mobile

phones

Improving livestock productivity, decision making ability and

better incomes to the livestock keepers

Empowering women by reducing information asymmetries due

to gender disparity

Target Beneficiaries

Landless farmers

Marginal farmers- less than 1 ha land holding

Smallholder farmers- between 1-2 ha land holding

Farmers practicing mixed cropping and livestock farms.

Approach Followed

Need Assessment

Content & Service Design

Quality Control

Awareness & Promotion

Feedback & Capacity Building

Loyalty & Satisfaction

Strategy for achieving results

Location Specific focused content development approach

Quality check at various levels before sending to Users

Integrating mobile delivery channels (IVR, SMS, USSD, Voice Message and Call Center)

Pushing Dynamic information based on the profile.

Regular User Testing, feedback analysis

Focused outreach strategy

Role of ICT

To provide scalable and affordable advisory services to info-poor livestock keepers

Accessibility and reduction of transaction costs of advisory services

Improving farmer decision making ability- addressing literacy barriers

Strengthening expert- farmer linkages

Mobile serving as a tool for women empowerment

Delivery mechanism(s)

Primary Information Pull Delivery Agro advisories: Regional IVR allows user to easily navigate the mKisan advisory capsules by selecting alpha- numeric keystrokes.

Farmer Helpline: A team of experts attend farmer queries on livestock. It is

much more efficient and cost effective than a conventional call center.

Primary Information Push Delivery Agro bulletins: Dynamic micro- information based on farmer profiles

delivered via SMS.

Complementary R & D Information Pull Delivery Videos: To be tested for users acceptance on mobile available on demand.

Service Provider (Lead partner)

- Handygo Technologies Pvt. Ltd (Handygo)

Content Providers - International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

- CABI (CAB International)

- Digital Green

Active Partners

Passive Partners Funding Partners

- GSMA Foundation

- USAID

- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Key actors involved

Outcomes

• Total unique users are 24,081

• Total content usage is 112,910 pulse

• Total calls made by users is 73,566

• Information on General care and management is in high demand among users with total usage of 53,974 pulse. (48%)

• Cattle management advisories are more popular followed by goats, buffalo and poultry.

Success Factors

• Localized and quality content delivery

• Service design

• Interactive Voice Response System

• Access to low cost handset

• Lower pricing and subscriptions available in various denominations

Challenges

Implementation effectiveness barriers

- Socio political and cultural diversity

- Infrastructure development difference

Local agro knowledge providers and expert availability

Content sourcing and validation

Dynamic user base

Frequent change of Mobile Numbers restricting to profile a user

What next…..

Gender focused content delivery Assessing loyalty and user satisfaction Impact assessment

Final Thoughts

Long term funds are required to create real impacts

Potential of ICT is underutilized by farming communities

Localized and validated content- horizontally and vertically