AGR-2 - Rural Advisory Service for Farmers
Product Use Case Summary
| ID | AGR-2 |
|---|---|
Name | Rural Advisory Service for Farmers |
Sector | Agriculture |
Version | 1.0 |
Status | Published |
This use case profiles rural advisory services for farmers. The objective is to equip farmers with the information, knowledge and skills needed to improve their farms and get better yields.
Governments in low- and middle-income countries are increasingly driven to identify sustainable strategies to ensure farmers have the information they need to stimulate agricultural productivity. Also, to overcome various production, management and marketing constraints that affect their productivity, profitability, and livelihood. Providing rural advisory services that are personalized and subscription based to the needs of famers is seen as a solution to equip farmers with the knowledge required to help upgrade their farming and managerial skills.
Stakeholders
Ministry of Agriculture and/or relevant government run agriculture extension/advisory institution.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, and producer organizations (POs) and cooperatives.
Agricultural extension agents with expertise in farming systems and supporting rural agricultural productivity.
Farmers seeking to improve agricultural yield and outputs.
Crop insurance providers that provide rural advisory service to ensure insured farmers have the right information.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Building Blocks
Source Documents
Steps
1 - Outreach Communication
Staff from the Ministry of Agriculture/ Agriculture extension institution organizes an awareness campaign on a new program initiated by government to support farmers in addressing causes of yield losses in agricultural and horticultural crops - i.e., crops pests. In some countries, rural advisory services are also provided by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society, the private sector, or even by producer organizations (POs) and cooperatives. The campaign is spread using promotional services - mobile messaging and/or aired on national radio/television to inform farmers about the new program. Posters advertising this service can also be disseminated. In addition, the agricultural advisor staff for this program, can coordinate in-person community outreach to rural farming communities.
Awareness drives can be implemented to educate and explain to farmers on the benefits and methods to subscribe to the advisory services of the program for example via a Mobile App, which can be downloaded for free from an online repository i.e., an App Store. Also, advisory services can be offered via a SMS & voice based advisory service, available to the subscribers of a particular Mobile Network Operator.
Workflows
Client Communication to raise awareness to target users about the program via mobile messaging / media channel(s)/ in-person. Also, communication on how farmers can access and subscribe to use the rural advisory service
Client Education for educating potential target users about the program's objective(s), benefit(s), constraint(s), guideline on access etc.
Content Management for the government staff and/ extension agents working on the program, to develop and manage training content for farmers on how to use the rural advisory services. Also, development of farming advisory content available on a mobile app and/or via a SMS & Voice based advisory service
Building Blocks
2 - Advisory Content Management
In this step, content contributors (e.g., agriculture experts) can use a digital system (often an online content management system such as wiki) to create crop specific advisory packages for targeted users. These guidance recommendations for farmers can then be made available in local languages and saved in data repositories - subsequently, a content management system can be used to publish the digital content. In certain countries, service providers such as mobile network operators, can then access the content management system and pull content - per specific need of the users (farmers) - based upon their query and profile, and send advisory messages to them. Thus, access to the content repository and delivery of the content to the targeted users is facilitated using digital means (SMS or via an App).
Workflows
Content Management to create information packages for targeted users and store all the information in a database/ content repository. Also, to facilitate the publishing and dissemination of the data to the target users
Data Analysis and Business Intelligence / Decision Support / Data Collection and Reporting to capture, analyze and update all crop specific advisory packages and messages. Information can be collected from the subscribers through digital survey (e.g., mobile survey)
Work Planning & Coordination to provide advisory services per user need and situational requirements (e.g., adverse climatic conditions, pest outbreak etc.)
Building Blocks
3 - Registration
Registration is the process of collecting standard information of a target group. For this use case, farmers seeking to receive personalized rural advisory service could be required to complete a registration process to subscribe to rural advisory services. Information requested could include information on the user's gender, age, phone number, location, size of farm, crops they are growing etc. This data which is store into a system is to facilitate a personalized user profile. The user will then receive personalized advisory messages based on the crops they are growing, advice on farming techniques and equipment to use based on their farm size, as well as receive local weather forecast and market price updates.
Workflows
Data Collection and Reporting for capturing and storing information provided by each farmer - stored as user profile
Identification and Registration to facilitate personalized advisory services based on registration information provided by the farmers. Also, to capture location of the farmer in order to provide localization-based services - this can be done with aid of geographic information services tool
Building Blocks
4 - Data Verification and Validation
This step is to verify and validate the submitted registration data. The data can automatically be checked against other government databases (e.g. ID, tax, land cadastre, etc.) in order to fill in any missing gaps, verify and validate collected information, including authentication of all records. Data checking approaches also vary: sometimes it has full interoperability.
Workflows
Client Case Management for storing and reviewing identification records
Data Analysis and Business Intelligence for cross-referencing and verifying records across multiple registry sources, and reconciling gaps / overlaps
Building Blocks
5 - Enrollment
Following registration, eligible farmers are asked to enroll in this advisory service program by subscribing to receive agri tips on crop and livestock, market prices and weather updates. In this use case, subscription can happen when users enact a digital action (e.g., dial an USSD code or complete a personalized profile on a mobile app) to receive personalized rural advisory services. Subscription can be open (without any pre-authorization or ID) or closed loop (only those having pre-authorization, such as a registration token).
In some countries, following registration to participate in the rural advisory service, the users must the enroll to receive tailored rural advisory services. This is to personalize their service experience. The user is prompted to complete their personalized profile by selecting the crops and agricultural products they would like to regularly receive advisory services on - optimal time to harvest specific crops, addressing crop specific pesticide issues, market price updates etc.
Workflows
Data Collection and Reporting for capturing personalized subscription selections
Identification and Registration for identifying registered users and linking them to the crop advisory subscriptions they have selected
Client communication sends users personalize SMS and/or notifications of harvest schedule, market prices for subscribed products/crops, and weather/natural disaster updates. Also to respond to any support needs/services requested by the users
Building Blocks
6 - Personalized Advisory Service
Users that subscribe to the rural advisory service, receive a specific number of agri tips notifications (via SMS or App) per week regarding the crop(s) and/or livestocks of their choice. Users should also have the ability to contact a helpline via app or telephone. The objective of the helpline is to connect users to agricultural experts, who can address their queries and follow-up questions on specific advisory notifications they receive. Users can then be given the ability to SMS in their questions or call in to speak to an expert for instant help.
Workflows
Client Case Management to address any communication needs and queries of the target users via mobile helpline, personal messengers, app messaging platform etc
Communication to facilitate communication between farmers and agricultural experts and extension agents (advisory content providers) supporting the implementation of this service
Building Blocks
7 - Marketplace
A marketplace is a platform where customers can find information of vendors selling products or services they need. This marketplace function can include searching and filtering feature as well as scheduling appointments feature. In certain countries that are implementing this rural advisory service via a mobile app, a procurement function is also incorporated into the app. This supports users to be able to search for a specific agricultural product on the app and then be provided a link or even redirected to the respective digital marketplace, where they can purchase this product. An example of such a marketplace platform can be seen outlined in this market linkage use case.
In other instances, this marketplace function can support farmers in identifying and booking a meeting and/or inspection with a specific agricultural expert i.e., an agronomist to visit their farm and address soil management and crop production issues they are facing. Furthermore, also coordinate supply chain management support for farmers around crop storage and waste recycling as well as helping farmer identify contracting services on tilling, harvesting, transport, irrigation,etc.
Workflows
Client Case Management to address any communication needs between users and scheduling support to coordinate on product or service delivery
Communication to facilitate communication between farmers and vendors via app
Marketplace to provide users with a list of products and vendors that can address their products and agricultural service needs
Building Blocks
8 - Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring insights are essential to facilitate learning and continuous improvements. Ongoing monitoring and evaluation entails tracking performance of a service all throughout its implementation cycle. It is important to incorporate the changing needs of farmers, but also address environmental problems in the agricultural sector such as soil erosion, pollution and salination which all cause a decrease in yields for farmers. Thus, being agile and having a process in place to implement learnings as quickly as possible, and method to collect, assess and incorporate feedback from farmers are crucial. For example, feedback can regularly be collected from farmers by using various digital tools such as SMS feedback (e.g., send Yes to 123}, IVRS {press 1 if you agree with statement} or mobile survey forms in mobile apps.
Workflows
Client Case Management for ongoing monitoring and tracking of advisory support services provided to farmers
Data Analysis and Business Intelligence / Decision Support / Data Collection and Reporting to analyze, update, and evaluate farmers' crop yields and outputs performances
Data Collection and Reporting for capturing feedback received, and data collected
Building Blocks
Contributors
Wesley Brown, GovStack Product Owner, Digital Impact Alliance
Sarah Farooqi, The Exchange Product Owner, Digital Impact Alliance
Sainabou Jallow, Business Analyst, Digital Impact Alliance
Margus Mägi, GovStack Project Lead for Estonia
Farina Owusu, Junior Advisor, Global Programme Digital Transformation at GIZ
Meelis Zujev, GovStack, Estonia
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