Smart ICT – from inception to completion

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A water-secure world
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Smart ICT for Weather
and Water Advice for
Smallholders in Africa:
Inception to Completion
Smart ICT Conference:
Shaping Ideas for a Smarter
Future
March 11-12, 2014
Hof van Wageningen, Wageningen,
The Netherlands
by Bharat R. Sharma

www.iwmi.org
Background About 3 years back IFAD was convinced that
poor, small, and remote farmers in Africa
need to benefit from new technology and
receive direct and actionable advisories on
weather, water and crop to improve
productivity and the livelihoods.
IWMI (Lead), WaterWatch (now eleaf), Basfood,
DLVplant took up this challenge to develop,
implement and evaluate the concept, tools, models,
local capacity, field-sites and business models for
the project.
An Inception Meeting for the partners and
donors was held in this very venue on 18-19
August, 2011 to agree to the methodology,
budgets and processes and kick-start the
“Smart ICT –Africa Project.”

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Goal:
• Empower smallholder farmers, and community
and public institutions in Africa to make informed
decisions in managing their land and water
resources better with the help from ICT-based
technologies integrating weather, water and crop
related information and advice.
Objective:
• To develop, test and pilot innovative approaches
providing needed information; develop capacity
of stakeholders to make good use of it; define
priorities for data provision; and increase interest
in agricultural and ICT-service provision industry
for its wider uptake.

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The Concept: Very complex and
technical in the background;
simple and actionable for the users.

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Project Locations : Mali, Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia
New Challenges………………….Each Year !!
(Coup, Partition, Revolution)

Project Sites
• Project aimed at smallholders: 60 pilot
farmers per site are intensively monitored
and supported (2012/2013)
• Services are free of charge (IFAD): many
additional users have registered –
commercial farmers, research,
government, etc.

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User Need
Assessment
Capacity
Building
Design and
Implementation
of Service
Review Missions
Evaluation,
Uptake
Business
Models
The Project Process

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• High input costs, volatility of markets, poor advisories on
production technologies make this venture very risky for the
farmers. Inadequate supply of irrigation water, weather
fluctuations leading to pest and disease attacks were invariably
cited as major factors for crop losses.
“More Water → More Products → More Money → Better “Future”.
• Mobile phone coverage and ownership was good in all the three
countries: varying from about 70 percent in Ethiopia, >85 percent
in Sudan and above 100 percent in Egypt. However, its usage for
productive purposes was less than 10 percent.
• Most respondents own radio and/or TV and reported interest in
important agricultural programs- but the information was very
generic and not of direct relevance.

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• If appropriate cell phones and advisories are available at
affordable costs, over 90% of the respondents are willing to
use it for information and advisories on weather, irrigation and
crop growth.
• Most farmers prefer to receive the messages in their own
language; Arabic , Oromia, Beja (voice). Text messages were
generally acceptable; accept in case of illiterate farmers which
prefer voice messages.
• Farmers are willing to use mobiles to access
advisories on time of planting, crop management
irrigation and fertiliser application routine
and harvesting schedule.
SMS
34%
Verbal
message
57%
Indifferent
9%
Preference of message format - Ethiopia.

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• Advisory services need to be synchronised with cropping
pattern and stages of crop growth.
• In Sudan, farmers placed heavy emphasis on water related
services and 84% of the farmers said would use phones to
access the information even if it cost some money. River/stream
flow and drought detection information scored 100% among
rainfed farmers.
• Involving stakeholders especially at grassroot level will
contribute to sustainability of the system.
• Human and material capacity building should be an essential
element of the intervention.

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2. Capacity Building
Project should directly engage with the beneficiary
farmers through capacity building.
Human and material capacity is rather weak in this
technical area and the skills of concerned officers and the
institutions need to be upgraded.
Analysis of satellite based information and adapting it to
the local conditions to define package of advice and
information to farmers should be provided high priority
for success of the intervention and its scaling up.

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• Capacity building was an important and integral part of the
project and programs were designed with very specific and
relevant contents and implemented in Cairo (Egypt), Wad Medani
(Sudan), Arata Chufa (Ethiopia).
• The project followed a “Trainer’s Training Approach” where a
representative mix of the farmers, field officers, research
officers, extension staff (with a gender focus) were extensively
trained to have a critical capacity for capacity building on a larger
scale.
• Partnerships with institutes of relevance and involvement /buy-in
from high level policy planners was given high importance. Special
efforts were made to involve the local media for wider publicity
, awareness and sustained impact.
• The resource material has been published in the form of easy-to-
understand toolkits and made available as an open source for
wider access and reference.

 Stakeholders’ meetings
− Khartoum 25th April 2012
− Ministry of Water
Resources Hall (37
participants)
− Kassala on 26th April
−IFAD meeting Hall
− 30 participants
− GRTU
− IFAD officials at Kassala
− Gash Agricultural Admin.
− Ministry of
Agriculture, Kassala State
− Kassala Metrological
Station
Photo credit: Giriraj Amarnath/IWMI

Attended by 23 participants
Gash farmers
 Gash WUA’s
Gash irrigation
Gash Agricultural
extension
Ministry of Agriculture –
Kassala State
 Gezira Scheme –
Irrigation Engineers
 Ministry of Water
Resources & Electricity
 Agricultural Research
Corporation
 University of Kassala (F.
Agriculture & F.
Engineering
 Researchers from
HRC(S)

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A total of 21 participants representing researchers, extension officers,
field functionaries and farmers participated in the program at
Soil, Water, and Environment Research Institute of ARC, Cairo, Egypt
Photo credit: Bharat Sharma/IWMIPhoto credit: Bharat Sharma/IWMI

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Broad Contents of Capacity Building Program at Egypt:
• Smart Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for Weather and
Water Information and Advice to Smallholders in Africa: An Introduction
SEBAL: a guide for non-scientists
• Spatial Data components in Smart ICT Project- Egypt
• Theoretical and Practical Session on Crop Irrigation
• Background of the Current Project and its Context for Egypt
• FieldLook Egypt: How to Use the Irrigation Planner
• Technical Approach for Operation of the Project at Egypt site (West Nobariya
region)
• Introduction in remote sensing for assessing water consumption and crop yield
• FieldLook : Explanation and instructions on functioning and use of web-based
FieldLook Egypt application
• Field Practical: Determination of rooting depths, soil types, irrigation
requirements and the related queries.
• Field Visit with Prospective Farmers and Farm Functionaries

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Smart ICT training notification Ivo Miltenburg (eLEAF) presenting at workshop
Hands-on training on how to register new fields
in FieldLook platform
Local trainer gathering data from farmer before
entering data onto the FieldLook platform
Presentation of the prepaid phone cards to the
Woreda Head for farmers to test the service
Distribution of the Nokia phones to 60 pilot
farmers
Smart –ICT Training
Program in
Ethiopia:
November 21-
23, 2012
Photo credit: Lisa-Maria Rebelo/IWMI Photo credit: Lisa-Maria Rebelo/IWMI
Photo credit: Lisa-Maria Rebelo/IWMIPhoto credit: Lisa-Maria Rebelo/IWMI
Photo credit: Lisa-Maria Rebelo/IWMI Photo credit: Lisa-Maria Rebelo/IWMI

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Excerpts from Evaluation of the Capacity Building Program in
Ethiopia:
All participants were enthusiastic, serious and very much involved.
It appeared that most targeted farmers do not have regular access
to internet, nor are they used to sending sms’s . This required the
trainers to do some basic training in these abilities.
The training was well organized and the participants confirmed at
the end of the training the relevance. Both the government
stakeholders and the farmers were asked to give their opinion on
the relevance and the reflection was highly positive and
encouraging.
IFAD was thanked on behalf of the Water Users Association for
supporting the project, and IWMI and eLeaf for “waking the
farmers of Arata Chufa up from their sleep and giving them a
place in the world”.

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3. Design and Implementation of Service
• This part was really the heart and soul of the project. It involved very high
level of expertise and active involvement of modellers, RS-GIS experts, data
acquisition and processing professionals, ground truthing
teams, telecommunication companies/ network operators, partner
institutions (all at the back-end operations) and farmers, farm functionaries
and the organisations as the front-end beneficiaries.
• The service comprised of near real-time information and advice on a number
of weather, water and crop related parameters at all three sites in
Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. Functionality and usefulness of the Irrigation
Planner was also tested at all 3 sites.
• The site at Sudan (Gash Irrigation Scheme) had a special component on
hydraulic modelling and Flood Forecasting and Early Warning System

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• The service was available over an area of 60km*60 km at each
site and was provided to 60 selected and registered farmers.
Other farmers were also encouraged to register their fields to
receive and/or view the desired information.
• The service was operational for:
Ethiopia: One non-rainy season of 2012-13
Sudan: Two rainy/ flooding seasons of 2012 and 2013
Egypt: Two cropping seasons in 2012 and 2013
• The service had both a push (information and weekly advice)
and pull ( farmers raised a query in an interactive manner and
received a response) component.
• Organisations/ WUAs were able to view the individual and
integrated information in a dynamic platform through the
individual Fieldlook sites.

 The Agricultural Water
Management Tool
(FIELDLOOK –Sudan)
 Developed (Smart-ICT
project)
 Translated in Arabic
Static text ,
Dynamic text,
E-mail templates .
 Tested
http://fieldlook.com.sd

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4. Evaluation of Service and Review Missions
• At the end of the operational season(s) farmers, farm
functionaries and other important stakeholders were again
approached with a formal research instrument/ checklist for a
proper evaluation of the ICT service in the 3 countries.
• In water scarce areas of Ethiopia, water schedule became
flexible with farmers receiving ‘irrigate now’ advisory getting
priority over ‘do not irrigate’ farmers.
• Irrigation schedules became more rational – 52% farmers used
less water, 30% farmers advised to use more water. More than
77% of farmers applied sms-based irrigation.
• All the farmers received advisories through sms and 95%
farmers received irrigation planning advice.

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• Majority of the respondents (98%) found the message sent was relevant
and 83% of them acted on the advice. 65 percent of the farmers also raised
additional queries.
• Illiteracy is limiting communication via SMS in Ethiopia. About 78% of the
farmers understood the message while the rest relied on others, school
children were very helpful in informing parents about the message. The
messages were very helpful to women as it reduced their workload.
• Having a mobile, its use for different purposes, understanding economic
use of water, social networking, market information etc were highly
appreciated by the project beneficiaries.
• Farmers are willing to pay for the service, but there is a great variation from
demand from a free government service to about USD 10 per season.

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Percent variation in the knowledge about SMS-based agricultural advisory
service and farmers willingness to pay for such a service in three study
districts in Egypt
SMS-advisory service Districts Total
Al-Bostan North El-Tahrir West
Nubaria
Heard about the
service and
willingness to pay
15.0 (9) 33.3 (20) 33.3 (20) 81.7(49)
Not-willing to pay 18.3 (11) 0 0 18.3(11)
*Figures in parenthesis indicate the number of farmers.

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Other Limitations:
1. Canal operational schedules are fixed in some parts of
Egypt and only farmers with access to pump may be able to
implement all the advisories.
2. Some farmers and farm functionaries found the information
and maps sent were too complex to comprehend and needed
more training for better comprehension. On the hand farmers
and functionaries requested for more images rather than text
to view the actual condition of large farms on the smart
phones.
3. Poor network and availability of electricity for phone
charging etc. was also a constraint in certain areas.

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5. Uptake and Impact
The concept and design of the Project was considered very novel and futuristic and
as such concerted efforts were made to share it with a wide range of peers and
experts . Initial results were also presented through a number of high level
thematic events:
• The project was presented as a “Blue Sky Idea” at ARM of IWMI. (Bharat)
• The design, concept and modelling framework was shared at the Stockholm
International Water Week-2012 at Stockholm. ( Wim Bastiaanssen)
• Results were shared through a Special Keynote Lecture at ICT4D Conference at
Accra, Ghana (Bharat)
• IWMI organised a Special session on “Use of RS-GIS and ICT for Improved
Irrigation Services” at First World Irrigation Forum, at Mardin, Turkey (Bharat,
Vladimir, Giriraj)
• IWMI and IFDC organised a Special session on Use of ICT for Improved
Agricultural Input Services at International ICT4Ag Conference at Kigali, Rwanda
(Bharat, Gijs)

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• eLEAF and IWMI has cooperated with several government agencies (Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Netherlands Space Office; Ministry of Water Resources, Sudan) in
presenting the project and its results in promotional material.
• Gijs Simons presented the Smart ICT project on July 3rd, 2013, during the opening of
the Geodata for Agriculture and Water (G4AW) program organized by the
Netherlands Space Office
• In July 2013, the Smart ICT project featured on Dutch national radio. Gijs Simons was
interviewed on the benefits of Smart ICT services for African smallholder farmers
• In August 2-013, The Guardian web editors conducted a phone interview with Gijs
Simons on the Smart ICT project and the scope for this type of services in developing
countries. This interview is likely to be published soon in the Guardian Sustainable
Business Section.
• A project feature on Kassala TV- Sudan.
• Rave reviews on Social media, Slideshare, Twitter, Blogs and other platforms for
wider dissemination of the results.

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6. Business Plans for the Smart ICT – Africa Project
The business report examines the feasibility of a future proof
financially independent Smart ICT service and consults on the
implementation to support further expansion and continued
services. The aim is to break even within 3 year with no institutional
funding. In year 3 the costs have to be covered with the revenues.
For the next two years commercial contribution of the producers or
the farmer organizations, associations and industries is expected to
be minimum, as users of the service need sufficient time to
evaluate the value for their management and farm practices.
Prices of the service will vary between market segments and
farmers will experience a lot of benefits when the service is fully
implemented in their crop management.

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• The highest cost for running the SMART-ICT service is purchasing the DMC satellite
images. Free images are available from Landsat, but the added cost of DMC images
with respect to free Landsat images provide a number of advantages. The best
case scenarios were estimated based on the use of free images.
• There are significant financial opportunities for the project regions in Egypt and
Ethiopia.
• To obtain project knowledge and experience with the food industry, Egypt is the
most interesting region where the implementation of Smart ICT using high cost
DMC images is profitable within 3 years.
• When no additional information is found for Sudan’s region regarding large food
processors, it will be a difficult challenge to make the Smart ICT service
commercially viable in the Gash area. However, a different area in Sudan, such as
the Gezira Irrigation Scheme, may provide better prospective for a sustainable
decision support system based on ICTs and geodata.

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Breakeven objective for all 3 scenarios for putting in the SMART-ICT SERVICE in Africa.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/24/mobile-phones-africa-microfinance-farming
Bharat Sharma
International Water Management Institute- New Delhi, India
b.sharma@cgiar.org
The maps used in the presentations are generated by IWMI

Smart ICT – from inception to completion

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Smart ICT – from inception to completion