Energy for Agricultural Innovation A digital learning platform for strengthening agricultural extension services for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa

Claudia Canales, Max Marcheselli; Tumaini Elibariki; William Mwakyami; Jon Knight; Ross Taylor; Erik Childerhouse; Email: claudia@b4fa.org

Biosciences for farming in Africa (B4FA)

Activity 1 – Novel publication and web site Activity 2 – Journalism course in plant breeding technologies Activity 3 – Scoping studies on how to strengthen agricultural extension services for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa

Aim: encourage dialogue and promote a better understanding of the available options for improving agricultural productivity in four African countries – Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria and Uganda. Focus: plant genetics technologies (traditional and modern)

Funded by the John Templeton Foundation, Malaysian Commonwealth Studies Centre (MCSC) and the Cambridge Malaysian Education Development Trust

Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa • Main source of employment in rural areas: food and income • Largely practiced at the subsistence level • Rate of adoption improved crop varieties much lower than in the

rest of the world • Productivity in African countries is well below the global average

Increasing agricultural productivity key development goal for poverty reduction and increased food security

Agricultural value chains • Increasingly knowledge dependent • Increasingly energy dependent

ENERGY FOR KNOWLEDGE: Pilot project set to determine if a Digital Learning Platform on mobile devices can be deployed (offline) to add value to existing initiatives delivering agricultural extension services to smallholder farmers in East Africa

The Digital Learning Platform

Developed by the Malaysian Commonwealth Studies Centre (MCSC) and the Cambridge Malaysian Education Development Trust to teach English, mathematics and public health to children and adults in Malaysia and India

• Multilingual, very robust data management system easy to administer anywhere in the world

• 70 interactive activities (online)

• Supports text, audio, image and video files

• Records user data (individual log in required) and tracks progress through time

• Deployed online on computers and on/offline on mobile devices

Case Study: FARM Africa Sesame Production and

Marketing Project

• Sesame: suited to semi-arid conditions; high and stable market demand

• Improved varieties released by Naliendele Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), Tanzania.

• FARM Africa project: 1) distribution network of improved seeds 2) trainings on best practices for production 3) linkages to markets; marketing training

Challenges of traditional training methods

• Scaling up of traditional training programmes beyond 10,000 farmers prohibitively expensive

• Efficacy of training depends on the degree of preparation, and on level of commitment and talent of individual trainers

• Inclusion of farmers’ perspective technically difficult and expensive

Aim of pilot: obtain proof of principle of suitability of the DLP to deliver agricultural extension services to rural communities

B4FA/Farm Africa Collaboration (Sep 2013)

Endadoshi

Kakoi

Magara

Endagile

Babati

Babati Dareda

Project sites: 4 off-grid villages in Babati District, Tanzania • 2 villages trained on tablets: 5 contact farmers/community agents

(CAs) and 1 extension agent/village. Each CA to train 50 farmers

• 2 villages traditional training (demonstration plots)- 5 farmers/ village

Project components:

1. Development of a modular course on sesame production and marketing (English and Swahili). All materials (images, videos, audio) developed locally with the involvement of the farming community

1. Development of the back-end application to increase off-line

functionality in mobile devices and cope with intermittent internet connection during updating

2. Delivery of the course

Baseline level of knowledge determined, and demographic and socio-economic data recorded (with users’ consent)

Module 1: Land

preparation

Module 2: Planting

Module 3: Plant care

Module 4: Harvesting

Module 4: Post-

harvesting

Module 5: Marketing

Sesame production digital course

Cultivation practices

Post-harvest management

and marketing

Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug

Land preparation Selection of seed

variety Soil testing

Credit

Planting Thinning Weeding

Crop nutrition management Plant care (pests and diseases)

Harvesting

Drying Storage

Sorting and grading Record keeping

Market analysis for better prices

Production planning

Aim: deliver information when it can influence decision making

First tablet training with contact farmers (community agents CAs)- Nov 2013

The education-entertainment model

Very ancient form of knowledge sharing (traditional fables aimed at social change) Very effective means of communicating

We value entertainment in its own right Increases ownership of project

Ngarenairobi field trip: cinema set up by Mobisol customer

Sesame song competition, Endadoshi Farmer Day

Competition entered by 3 traditional music groups (over 20 people each), 3 rappers/hip-hop singers from Babati, and a man who composed a poem Assessed on content (recommended sesame production practices) and artistic merits- cash prizes Very high attendance of event

• Project evaluation underway (knowledge retention and uptake of recommended practices)

• Further modules to be developed: marketing & value addition; farming as a business; conservation agriculture; integrated pest management

For a scale-up project: • Power source (now 6 km walk) • Connectivity (mobile Internet) • Business model for sustainability: establishing a functional

reward system for CAs (eg. linking the provision of education to aggregation of sales as a business opportunity; subscription)

Next steps

Advantages of the digital learning platform:

• Timely delivery of information • Availability of modules for repeat viewing • Easier for women to access information (flexibility of timing to

view the course) • Locally generated resources/teaching materials: ownership of

course • Local knowledge can be easily incorporated. • Administration system allows determining who is using the

course, and how successfully • Information can be targeted to specific users (gender,

geographic location, language)

• Tablet can be used as portable demonstration plot

Challenges:

• Local logistics (energy, connectivity, transport, etc.).

• Success dependent on commitment of individual CAs

• Information delivered needs to meet actual demand of users

• DLP currently linked to one economic activity- high risk (dry year)

• A good business plan is required for scaling up the project and

ensuring sustainability

• Access to knowledge only one part of the puzzle: enabling policies required (eg. financing, energy, infrastructure, access to markets)- integrated approach required