At One Acre Fund, we are always thinking about how we can improve the services that we offer to our clients. One potential method for doing so is using technology to enhance our core service model–farm inputs, credit, training, and market facilitation. Before we trial any new innovation, we look at existing models and best practices.
Some existing models for technology use in agriculture were highlighted in a recent seminar hosted by USAID on information and communications technology and its role in agriculture development. The speaker, Judith Payne, is the ICT advisor for USAID's Economic Growth and Africa bureaus. She discussed projects that address several parts of One Acre Fund's service model, including delivery of financial services, agriculture extension, and market access.
One of the most interesting extension projects Payne discussed was Digital Green in India. This nonprofit helps farmers produce videos documenting improved agriculture practices. To improve the quality of the videos and information offered, there is an automated phone line that farmers can call in to provide feedback. It currently operates in about 600 villages with about 42,000 farmers. In an evaluation of the project by Microsoft Research India, researchers found that farmers preferred to watch videos that showed people similar to themselves, and that agriculture "experts" were less trusted. Farmers were also more interested in watching a video if the tools used in the video were available for purchase at the actual video screenings. These findings confirm what One Acre Fund has discovered–farmers trust their peers, and it is important to provide tools in combination with training.
Payne also discussed a market access application called Reuters Market Light. Currently available in twelve states in India, it is being used by 200,000 farmers. They pay a subscription fee of about $4.30 USD per quarter, and receive information on market prices, weather conditions, and farming cycles. Farmers can request information by crop, region, and in their local language. Reuters Market Light is not currently financially sustainable (it employs over 300 full-time staff), and its impact is under evaluation by IFPRI and the University of Oxford.
Both Digital Green and Reuters Market Light could have interesting implications for One Acre Fund's field operations. However, it is important for us to understand their potential to scale, their impact on farmer income, and their financial sustainability. Payne noted that both impact and sustainability have not been given enough attention with most ICT interventions for agriculture. The Microsoft Research India study of Digital Green calculated a per farmer cost of $3.70 USD for the video extension service (with an adoption rate of 85 percent); however, it's unclear if the cost of making and producing the videos was included in this figure, or what the return on investment is for farmers.
Payne strongly recommended that all practitioners planning to pilot ICT innovations should plan their exit strategy and business model from the beginning. As One Acre Fund continues to learn more about the potential for ICT to improve our field operations, we will be focused on how technology can help us reach 1 million farmers by 2020 in a financially sustainable way.
