Title: mAgri programme case study - India
Pages: 6 pp.
Source: GSMA
Date (published): 07/06/2011
Date (accessed): 18/10/2011
Type of information: report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited (IKSL) is a tri-lateral joint venture between the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO), the largest farmers’ cooperative in India and airtel, the largest mobile network operator, along with Star Global Resources Limited, rural telephony experts who acquired 25% shares. IKSL provides voice-based agricultural information to empower rural farmers and reinforce the cooperative through the mobile network. After a successful pilot, the service launched in 2008.IKSL distributes airtel SIM cards branded ‘Green SIM’ to its IFFCO members and other farmers.

The Green SIM functions as a normal SIM as well as providing the agricultural valued added services (Agri VAS). The user receives 5 recorded voice messages, free of charge, each day covering both local and national agricultural topics. Green SIM users access an Agri Helpline where they can get answers from agri-experts to any farming question they care to raise.

The GSMA mAgri Programme provided a grant and technical assistance to IKSL. Our work aimed to strengthen the service and improve the ICT content systems to ensure efficacy and relevance for the end user - and to leave the project ready for further scaling. Today, the IKSL Green SIM service has 3 million users."

Title: Revitalizing Zambia’s Agricultural Marketing Information Centre (Amic)
Author: Gage, Daria
Pages: 6 pp.
Source: Policy Synthesis 44
Publisher: Michigan State University and USAID/Enabling Agricultural Trade (EAT)
Date (published): 04/08/2011
Date (accessed): 21/09/2011
Type of information: research report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"1. Public sector agricultural market information systems (MIS) can provide useful information to farmers, uninformed traders, and policy makers. While private information networks offer a valuable service to select clients, only a well-functioning public MIS can redress information asymmetries among marketing actors that can inhibit competition.

2. The second core mission of a public MIS should be to organize and manage data in such a way that government decision-makers and civil society organizations can accurately diagnose and even anticipate emerging market problems and respond to them in a timely manner.

3. Zambia’s AMIC suffers from a range of weaknesses all along the supply chain for price information. Data collection and transmission is irregular and unreliable, data management is unstructured and lacks strategic oversight, and dissemination is entirely supply-driven.

4. The primary reasons for AMIC’s weak performance are competing priorities and a misguided incentive structure for staff at the national, provincial, and most importantly at the district level, where the viability of the collection process depends on reciprocity between price collectors and traders."

Title: African Cashew Initiative: Cooperation to Use ICT for the Benefit of Cashew Growers
Source: ict4d Newsletter
Publisher: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Date (published): July 2011
Date (accessed): 10/08/2011
Type of information: short notice
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"We recently published, in collaboration with our colleagues from the African Cashew Initiative, a short paper “Virtual Cooperatives: ICT for African Cashew Farmers” on a development partnership with SAP Research in Ghana.
The development partnership utilizes Information and Communication Technologies to provide the means to enhance the productivity of Cashew farmers, to strengthen farmer cooperatives, and to enable them to do collaborative business with the established economy in a transparent and sustainable way.
To learn more, you can download the paper here or visit the website of the African Cashew Initiative. Also, Deutsche Welle, the German international TV channel, has produced a short video about the pilot of the project in Brong Ahafo, Ghana."
via https://twitter.com/#!/ictdev

Title: Agricultural Information, the Global Food Crisis, and Effective Use
Author: Michael Gurstein
Source: Gurstein's Community Informatics
Date (published): 25/07/2011
Date (accessed): 25/07/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Community Informatics colleague Ajit Maru, in a posting on the Community Informatics Research elist suggests some disturbing questions concerning the relationship between “Information Access” and “effective use” and its possible links to the rising food crisis globally.
He comments on the increasing shift of governments to making agricultural information available primarily in electronic form via the web or through mobile access. This is inevitably linked to declining support for the provision of agricultural information through the more traditional face to face connections of agricultural extension...
...
To add to these very important comments… There is currently an overwhelming pre-occupation of donors and those concerned with ICTs and development with “mobiles for development” that is with additional means for the infrastructure for “accessing” information. However, there would appear to be little or no related concern (or resources) for ensuring that the pre-conditions for ensuring the effective use of this information particularly by rural small-holders—that the information to overwhelmingly non- or only marginally literate end users is in the multiple languages of the end users, is accessible on devices available to end users a, provides sufficient information context to be usable by end user, is structured in such a way as to enable necessary collaborative action by small-holders and so on."

Title: Smallholder farmers and ICT-KM
Author: Enrica Porcari
Source: 4d Magazine
Publisher: Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies
Date (published): January-March 2010
Date (accessed): 21/04/2010
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
ICTs can help smallholder farmers maximise the return on agricultural inputs, provided timely and relevant information is made available to them.

Research organisations like the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) cannot be satisfied just knowing they have produced high quality science. It is essential that the outputs of their research are communicated and put to use in the village, on the ground, in the lab, or across the negotiating table.

This is where the ICT-KM Programme of the CGIAR plays a role in helping to get vital research results out to the people who need it the most. The Programme recognises that scientific research organisations are becoming more and more information intensive, multi-disciplinary and partnership-based, requiring up-to-date communications infrastructure and knowledge sharing practices. As such, the Programme helps the CGIAR develop and sustain a culture of active information and knowledge sharing involving timely yet cost-effective multi-directional communications, the know-how to collaborate, and the tools to support multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams.

Title: A Study of Prioritisation of Information Related Needs of Farmers. A Study of Prioritisation Plugging information gaps through ICTs
Author: Sapna A. Narula
Source: i4d Magazine
Publisher: Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies
Date (published): January-March 2010
Date (accessed): 21/04/2010
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
ICTs offer great potential for economic growth and social empowerment of farmers by linking agricultural supply chains to national and global markets.

ICTs offer a promising potential for social and economic empowerment of rural people in India especially those involved in agriculture (Narula, 2010). However, the opportunities in this field are not limited to agriculture, but are extended to health, education and e-governance as well. Most of the ICT models including both private sector as well as public sector have been launched with agricultural applications as their prime focus. These models are providing a range of services to fulfill the information deficit our farmers are facing in agricultural production, input-supply, agricultural extension, market information/intelligence and price discovery(Narula and Sharma, 2008; Narula, 2009). Inspite of all these initiatives, it has been felt that there is a huge gap existing between what is being offered and what is being demanded.(Cecchini and Raina, 2004; Chetley, 2006; Parmar, 2007; Narula, 2008, Narula, 2009b, Saith and Vijaybhaskar, 2008). The information modules which are too generalised irrespective of the region, crop, farmer, agro-climatic zone can not really fulfill the strategic objectives of these ICT interventions. (Jain et al, 2008; Parmar et al, 2007). Hence, a strong need has been felt to explore important issues pertaining to this gap such as assessing the information-supply gap, finding out the impact assessment of information modules, design and development of client-centric initiatives and enhancing adoption and use of ICT services by target beneficiaries. This article is a part of a larger study conducted in district of Udham Singh Nagar of Uttarakhand, India pertaining to the use of ICTs by farmers. In this article, an effort has been made to address issues related to the prioritisation of informational needs of the farmers in the district and the possession level of ICTs among the target group so as to further explore the potential of ICTs such as computers, the Internet and mobile phones among the rural folk/farmers.

Title: ITC e-Choupal to quintuple reach
Author: Anuradha Himatsingka
Source: The Economic Times
Publisher: Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.
Date (published): 12/04/2010
Date (accessed): 12/04/2010
Type of information: news article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
ITC’s e-Choupal network has reached out to over four million farmers growing a range of crops such as soyabean, coffee, wheat, rice and pulses in over 40,000 villages through 6,500 kiosks across 10 states including Madhya Pradesh , Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu...“Under the new version, ITC plans to offer personalised crop management advisory services to individual farmers, integrating mobile phones into the digital and physical network of e-Choupal .”

It will enable a farmer to provide information on the type of soil, crop variety, the date of sowing and details about crop condition on an ongoing basis to the company. Subsequently, this data will be processed to give farmers specific advice.

Title: Socio-Economic Impact of Mobile Phones on Indian Agriculture
Authors: Surabhi Mittal, Sanjay Gandhi, Gaurav Tripathi
Pages: 53 pp.
Publisher: Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations
Date (published): 25/02/2010
Date (accessed): 04/03/2010
Type of information: working paper
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
Deficits in physical infrastructure, problems with availability of agricultural inputs and poor access to agriculture-related information are the major constraints on the growth of agricultural productivity in India. The more rapid growth of mobile telephony as compared to fixed line telephony and the recent introduction of mobile-enabled information services provide a means to overcome existing information asymmetry. It also helps, at least partially, to bridge the gap between the availability and delivery of agricultural inputs and agriculture infrastructure.
This paper investigates a series of questions that explore this topic: What kind of information do farmers value the most to improve agricultural productivity? Do mobile phones and mobile- enabled agricultural services have an impact on agriculture? What are the factors that impede the realisation of the full productivity enhancing potential of mobile phones? The answers to these questions have important implications for mobile operators, for information service providers, and for policy-makers. The quality of information, its timeliness and trustworthiness are the three important features that have to be ensured to enable farmers to use it effectively to improve productivity.
The study found evidence that mobiles are being used in ways which contribute to productivity enhancement. However, to leverage the full potential of information dissemination enabled by mobile telephony will require significant improvements in supporting infrastructure and capacity building amongst farmers to enable them to use the information they access effectively.
As mobile penetration continues to increase among farming communities and information services continue to adapt and proliferate, the scope exists for a much greater rural productivity impact in the future.

Title: From the web to the phone. Information system sends RSS feeds to Chilean farmers via SMS
Author: Meghan Cagley
Source: ICT Update, Issue 53
Publisher: Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (ACP-EU)
Date (published): February 2010
Date (accessed): 26/02/2010
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
In Chile, the Mobile Information Project takes advantage of the growing ubiquity of mobile phones to deliver agricultural information from the web directly to farmers.

Title: Direct data on demand. Mobile apps deliver a broad range of information to Ugandan farmers
Authors: Whitney Gantt, Eric Cantor
Source: ICT Update, Issue 53
Publisher: Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (ACP-EU)
Date (published): February 2010
Date (accessed): 26/02/2010
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
A network of community knowledge workers (CKWs) in Uganda uses a suite of mobile applications to give farmers a broad range of information. The CKWs can provide farming advice, market data, pest- and disease-control training, plus weather forecasts.