1. Mobile Agro-advisory project in
India: CABI & IKSL
Third IAALD Africa Chapter Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa 21 – 23 May 2012
Sharbendu Banerjee, CABI South Asia-India
www.cabi.org
KNOWLEDGE FOR LIFE

2. Agenda
● Background
● ICT applications in agriculture extension
● Mobile telephony in agri-extension
● IKSL Case Study:
● Synopsys & services
● Coverage
● Success
● CABI IKSL joint program
● Key Learning
● Next Step; Direct2Farm

3. Background
The Hunger Index:
● South Asia is the home to 1 billion poor people living under
$2/day
● 40% world’s 925 million hungry people live in China and
India
What “Better Information” can do to make things “Better”
● 50% Reduction in crop loss due to “correct information”
through mobile phones rather than “guess work” by farmers
( ICRIER 2009)
● 22% higher yield of Basmati rice because of better
information through mobile. (IKSL Contract Farming
project2008)

4. A “Farmer’s eye view” of the agriculture knowledge
landscape

5. The Bottlenecks
Information: The information is held by dispersed and
diversified entities; e.g. academia, businesses, service
providers, farmers, governments etc; Information must
be Standardized for congruity and authenticity
Communication: “WYSINWYG” ; Information
generated for one target audience may not make sense
to other target audiences ; Information must be Re-
purposed as per the target audience
Technology: The “last-mile” is not friendly with many
“common technologies” (e.g. Internet); Technology must
be Accessible and Adoptable for the target audience

6. Information Farmers wants information that is:
need
“Knowledge harvesting is
one way to draw out and
package tacit knowledge
to help others adapt,
personalize, and apply it....
Knowledge Solutions,
And solve their problems
ADB, 2010”

7. ICT
Applications in
agriculture
extension
“Just as personal computers
changed the nature of
communications and information
access in the developed world in
the 1990s, mobile phones are now
changing their nature worldwide..
The real digital divide. The
Economist, March 2005”

8. Mobile
telephony in
agriculture The landscape
extension
•Rural India accounted for around
38-40% of the total Indian mobile
handset sales by 2010.
•in India alone, mobile value added
services (mVAS) market size is
estimated at USD 158 billion; which by
2015 will grow to USD 671 billion
“The next wave of Telecom •For a subscriber, mobile phone is not
growth will come from the
bottom of the pyramid. For just a device to communicate, it’s a
majority of the population in multipurpose tool that enables users to
the rural segment, the
mobile phone is the first communicate as well as provides
communication “infotainment” to them
device..IAMAI 2008

9. IFFCO Kisan
Sanchar Synopsis & services
Limited (IKSL) ● For profit company, formed as JV between
IFFCO, Airtel & Star Global
● Operational since 2007
● Current subscriber base over 4 million in India
● Farmers subscribe by purchasing a SIM card
from Airtel (branded as Green SIM)
● Farmers also purchase some airtime (min
USD 0.20) form Airtel
● Receives 5 voice messages in local dialect
every day;
● 2 on crop
● 1 on animal
Communication is not ● 1 on weather/market price
about what is said, but ● Can access local language speaking helpline
about what is heard by dialling a short code: 534351 ( normal call
....NLP principle tariff payable)

10. IKSL Agro-advisory service schema

11. IKSL Service Coverage in India
•18 States
•Over 4 Million Subscribers
•Over 100,000 Voice Messages delivered
•Over 35,000 Farmers’ queries resolved
Image Courtesy: Google Maps

12. How CABI is helping IKSL
CABI has been the preferred source of
information for the agriculture
researchers for last few decades, now
CABI is going to bring its experience,
expertise and enthusiasm to provide
high quality actionable information to
farmers to solve their day to day farming
problems

13. What CABI is doing
CABI IKSL
Joint Program Knowledge Management
● Helping IKSL in developing in-house agriculture
information repository
● Content provision ( factsheets having actionable
information for farmers)
Content Quality Assurance:
● SOP-s and protocols
● Authenticity of information
● Content process audit for monitoring and
improvement
Capacity building of IKSL agents
It is amazing what you ● Training and coaching
can achieve by ● Developing customized tools for increasing
communicating, sharing efficiency (e.g. Web based crop health
and collaborating....
diagnosis tool to analyse farmers’ narration for
understanding real issue)

14. Re-purposing Knowledge
● Farmers need “actionable information”
Key Learning ● Information has to re-packaged as per local context
● Voice has more reach over text as many farmers
are illiterate
Real-time communication through Mobile Phones
● Farm to Lab
● Lab to Farm
● Farm to Farm
● Farm to Market
Mobile Technology augments conventional
Extension
Effective communication is
about twice listening to
● Using Mobiles, extension reaches farmers’ fields
feedback than communicating 24x7
message; that’s why we have 2 ● Extension-farmer interaction becomes real-time
ears and only 1 mouth.... ● Mobile network operators are finding agro-
information key to their rural marketing strategy;
conducive for Public Private Partnership in
Agriculture

15. Mobile Agro-
infomediary
service CABI DIRECT2FARM
Direct2Farm is a mobile enabled agriculture
infomediary Service aimed at making high
quality information readily accessible to
farmers, enabling them to solve their everyday
farming problems by making “application of
better knowledge” and by taking “informed
decisions” resulting in profitable farming
activity and improved livelihood.
The difference between
what we do and what we
are capable of doing
would suffice to solve
most of the world’s
problems...MK Gandhi

17. merci
спасибо
cảm ơn cô
salamat
faleminderit
stuh-tee
zikomo
asante sana
Assalamualikum urakoze
ありがとう
kiitos
thank you gracias
ke itumetse tak
terima kasih
நனறி dhanyawaad शुििया
xie-xie mersi efharistó danke
благодаря 谢谢 grazie teşekkür ederim
www.cabi.org
KNOWLEDGE FOR LIFE