ICT and Agriculture
Issues to address from Inception.
I have always thought about farming in relation to ICT. Wondered how I can mobile apps, social media and technology to minimize cost and improve crop yield per hectare and animal weight in the shortest time. Now I have plans to farm with drones in the next few months. Yes! Farmers in developed countries are using them drones, so why not Nigeria. But it is vital to start all businesses small and nurture it to grow. That’s how I came up with providing farmers with demand-driven advisory services. Here’s tips on how to start it….

1. Involve all the potential users when assessing demand
ICT should be demand-driven. Your project design should begin with specific details of the intended users, such as smallholder farmers, marketers, input suppliers etc., possibly in groups or cooperatives. Information about weather, pest and disease attack, current commodity price and best market place are most demanded.

2. Keep it simple
There is often a tendency to want to provide all the information and assistance that farmers could possibly need. This can lead to complex, costly, unworkable and unsustainable designs. A better approach is to start by providing limited information to address a fundamental problem, with the objective to upgrade and scale-up services if the pilot is successful. Remember to start small maybe you can just provide market access to maize, beans and paddy rice.

3. Do not pre-commit to any particular ICT solution
Having the right mix of ICT is necessary to empower and develop smallholder farmers, value chain actors and of cause make your money. I will talk about value chain and their actors in other posts. For instance, combine SMS alert, radio, facebook, whatsapp and pinterest to promote agribusiness services gives best result. Remember this is a business and as such should be based on cost-effectiveness and sustainability and not just on the fact that it is desirable and technically possible.

4. Address literacy, gender and social cultural issues from inception.
Most farmers have mobile phones even though they are illiterates and lack technical knowhow to use the internet. Providing services in languages understood by most people is essential. Adopt what I call the WAZOBIA configuration such that smallholder farmers can see information in their native languages. Understand that religion and tradition may interfere with your business. For instance, women are sometimes denied access to technology, even though they make about 80% of the farming population worldwide and can adopt technologies better than men. Communities may have strong traditional information and knowledge-sharing approaches, as well as trust-based marketing relationships with traders, and your agribusiness must promote the continuation of such traditional practices.

5. Work with existing service providers
Based on your business location, you may want to use the network widely used by your intending customer. My location Airtel works just fine plus they have CUG that allows groups to communicate at cheaper rates. Also you can connect with freelancer ICT agents to do small jobs at affordable rates. Avoid looking for free services always.

6. Train your agents/freelancers
If you must succeed in agribusiness services you have to recruit and train all agents. Remember they must not all be in the present location. All you need is information in specified location and so need people in those location. For instance, a guy in Jos can be connected to give information about price of agricultural produce needed by a Fast food outlet in GRA Port-harcourt.
To increase our food security status, it is important to be a value chain actor along all agricultural produce. Technology and agriculture have a lot of synergy underutilized in Africa. Find one chain and pin it.

Sir your topic on freelance attracted me actually i am looking at this aspect i graduated this yr as an agric student i am thinking on undergoing a task as a freelance writer on agric based field ,any prospect on this sir.

Okadalifestyle:
ICT and Agriculture
Issues to address from Inception.
I have always thought about farming in relation to ICT. Wondered how I can mobile apps, social media and technology to minimize cost and improve crop yield per hectare and animal weight in the shortest time. Now I have plans to farm with drones in the next few months. Yes! Farmers in developed countries are using them drones, so why not Nigeria. But it is vital to start all businesses small and nurture it to grow. That’s how I came up with providing farmers with demand-driven advisory services. Here’s tips on how to start it….

1. Involve all the potential users when assessing demand
ICT should be demand-driven. Your project design should begin with specific details of the intended users, such as smallholder farmers, marketers, input suppliers etc., possibly in groups or cooperatives. Information about weather, pest and disease attack, current commodity price and best market place are most demanded.

2. Keep it simple
There is often a tendency to want to provide all the information and assistance that farmers could possibly need. This can lead to complex, costly, unworkable and unsustainable designs. A better approach is to start by providing limited information to address a fundamental problem, with the objective to upgrade and scale-up services if the pilot is successful. Remember to start small maybe you can just provide market access to maize, beans and paddy rice.

3. Do not pre-commit to any particular ICT solution
Having the right mix of ICT is necessary to empower and develop smallholder farmers, value chain actors and of cause make your money. I will talk about value chain and their actors in other posts. For instance, combine SMS alert, radio, facebook, whatsapp and pinterest to promote agribusiness services gives best result. Remember this is a business and as such should be based on cost-effectiveness and sustainability and not just on the fact that it is desirable and technically possible.

4. Address literacy, gender and social cultural issues from inception.
Most farmers have mobile phones even though they are illiterates and lack technical knowhow to use the internet. Providing services in languages understood by most people is essential. Adopt what I call the WAZOBIA configuration such that smallholder farmers can see information in their native languages. Understand that religion and tradition may interfere with your business. For instance, women are sometimes denied access to technology, even though they make about 80% of the farming population worldwide and can adopt technologies better than men. Communities may have strong traditional information and knowledge-sharing approaches, as well as trust-based marketing relationships with traders, and your agribusiness must promote the continuation of such traditional practices.

5. Work with existing service providers
Based on your business location, you may want to use the network widely used by your intending customer. My location Airtel works just fine plus they have CUG that allows groups to communicate at cheaper rates. Also you can connect with freelancer ICT agents to do small jobs at affordable rates. Avoid looking for free services always.

6. Train your agents/freelancers
If you must succeed in agribusiness services you have to recruit and train all agents. Remember they must not all be in the present location. All you need is information in specified location and so need people in those location. For instance, a guy in Jos can be connected to give information about price of agricultural produce needed by a Fast food outlet in GRA Port-harcourt.
To increase our food security status, it is important to be a value chain actor along all agricultural produce. Technology and agriculture have a lot of synergy underutilized in Africa. Find one chain and pin it.