MOBILE APPS IN SMALL SCALE AGRICULTURE

october 2011

Likes to receive info and

advertising via SMS

Market agent spends >$10 giving market info by voice

calls

Current record

keeping – nowhere for it

to go

Managing complex farmer

support structures

Needs a local marketing channel…

Farmer Communication Suite •  Generic Communication among rural economy players

•  Farmer Registration Module with farmer details, enables phone surveys

•  Membership Directory enables group creation by geography/role/crop...

•  Reporting Dashboard

•  Content Management System serves content in multiple media based on client capabilities

•  Billing Framework allows multiple business models to be tested

EADD

IDE/CARE Zambia

Kenya Cost Reduction

Ext. Off. Scale

Ke: 100K+

Zm: 18K

Partner Country Impact Scale Dev Status Imp Status

Use Cases

Event Management

A Dairy 'Mobiliser' uses sms to invite members of 6 dairy management groups under her purview to a training session on milk quality. Attendances records are captured directly on the Mobiliser's feature phone

Weather information is delivered via RSS – or email - on a Zambian extension officers smart phone. He relays via SMS the info he thinks important to the 50 farmer leaders in his district

A group of 15 horticulture farmers meet and, using their Farmer Leaders' feature phone, self-report on crop plantings and timings

A market agent can get a good, but time-sensitive price for tomatoes; via field officers he sends an sms request to nearby farmers known to have tomato crop nearing harvest. Four farmers respond and organise a local transporter to aggregate their crates.

An Agrodealer sponsors local farmers group communication by tagging intra-group messaging with a 35 character advertisement

Info Provision

Better Data

Matchmaking

Advertising

EADD

IDE/CARE Zambia

Kenya Cost Reduction

Ext. Off. Scale

Ke: 100K+

Zm: 18K

Partner Country Impact Scale Dev Status Imp Status

East African Lactation Record System

Improving lactation recording capabilities; farmers can record daily – or sampled – records for their cows – including own-use milk. Self reported data audited and also checked against sold milk data for consistency and credibility

A mobile – USSD and .mobi - solution to help small-scale farmers certify and sell cows

Allowing potential buyers the ability to request a lactation history of a cow before purchasing – and by marketing certified cows up for sale via an SMS/web query-able list

EADD Kenya 200% + Cow Sales Income

30% of 250 K Farmers

Improved Herd

Partner Country Impact Scale Dev Status Imp Status

50% - Trans. Costs

Zambia Market Information Service “Peer-to-peer” market information service that bypasses need for centralized and formal data-capture

Extension officers able to scale matchmaking activities between farmers and markets

IDE Zambia 30% + Prod. Price 18K

200% - AG Costs 9 Markets

Partner Country Impact Scale Dev Status Imp Status

Agents able to:  better manage supply through insight into 'linked'

farmer plantings  reduce communications costs (currently > $10/day)

responding to farmers  scale number of relationship with farmers

Farmers able to:  get real-time market data relevant to their nearby

markets  aggregate produce and share transport

AgentCosts-200%

FarmerPriceAchieved+30%

Critical Success Factors Op

portu

nity

Challenge

Flexible funding mechanisms Accessing the

users

Business/Social Impact models

Its complicated

Opportunities for grants in this space, but making the transition from grant-funding to loan funding to revenues takes both discipline and flexibility. $2 dollar a day services probably not possible without initial funding

From a standing start , reaching required large numbers at very low acquisition costs = hard. Need partner (MNO – limited access?) OR existing networks: NGOs , Farmer organisations, co-ops etc.

Significant opportunities for revenue where benefit to farmer etc clear. Difficult challenge is to pay for core infrastructure and ecosystem maintenance while allowing entrepreneurship for specific apps. Other high-level challenges include ownership issues to untangle and success may cause client cherry-picking and thus global access policy issues.

Managing stakeholders with different incentives – and timelines – needed for work at $2-$8 per day

Our Approach

Who can identify problems? Who can solve problems?

Improving and implementing

Problems • Need more extension services; fewer officers

• Terrible access to market info and logistics

• No credible small scale dairy performance recording

• Inefficient and unsustainable agro dealerships

Agricultural Development

Organisations

South (and East!) African Mobile

Services Industry

Solutions • Communication suite for farmer networks

• Peer to peer market information system

• Community livestock recording application

• Agro-inputs management and marketing tool

IDEA: Mobile tech can help to solve some African agri problems

Facilitator

Funder

M&E Business Development Scaling and Replicating Dalberg Umgana Africa

•  IDE Zambia •  CARE Zambia •  East African Dairy

Development Project

•  New Media Labs •  The Praekelt

Foundation •  Integrat •  ???

SANGONeT / BMGF / ???

SANGONeT

BMGF