mobile plus chennai, sharbendu cabi
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Information Quality Assurance is critical for agro-advisories to be perceived as trustworthy by farmersTRANSCRIPT
www.cabi.org
KNOWLEDGE FOR LIFE
Mobile Plus , Chennai, India, September 2011Sharbendu Banerjee, CABI, India
Delivering high quality content –A Critical Success Factor for Agro-advisories
About CABI• Established in 1910• Not-for-profit status • Owned by 45 member countries• Global leader in
• infomediary services• communication of agricultural
research for development• scientific publishing• agricultural development
consultancy and project delivery
Partnerships
Alliances Linkages
Transforming global knowledgeinto local insights
Agriculture “Knowledge Landscape”
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
Farmers’ information need:● information to make
decisionsWhat will grow on my soil type?
● answers to questions What standard should my crop meet to go to market?
● solutions to problemsAn insect is damaging my crop –what do I do?
But they are cautious and conservative
Farmers want the informationthey receive to be:
● Reliable and tested
● Updated● Accurate● Compliant to
local regulations
Our work gives us this insight
Quality Customized Accessible
● In local language
● Relevant to their context
● Actionable within their capacity
● Affordable to access
● Easy to understand
● Flexible delivery options
CABI IKSL
● Delivered through Airtel mobile network
● Over 4 million farmers in 18 states of India
have subscribed to date.
● Each farmer daily gets 5 local language voice
messages on crop protection, agronomy, animal
husbandry etc
● Further supported by a local language helpline
What CABI is doing● Providing scientific backstopping service to the
local experts
● Developing content & Knowledge Management
● Information Quality Assurance (SOP & Audits)
● Developed Crop Health Diagnosis inference
Tools for the contact centre agents
Our work Mobile Agro-advisory
Our work
What is Plantwise?Plantwise is a global initiative, led by CABI, to improve food security by reducing crop losses.Plantwise works by communicating and capturing knowledge● locally from face-to-face Q&A via a
network of plant clinics to help the poorest farmers, documenting and digitising the Q&A;
● internationally via a comprehensive global knowledge bank.
Plantwise
Our workIdentifying food security problems and working with farmers on the solutions● Supported by the Swiss Agency for
Development and Cooperation● Projects run in Bangladesh and
Uganda● Working participatively with women
farmers● Local knowledge and technologies
integrated with new science to empower women to improve seed quality
Good Seed Initiative
● Knowledge delivery through
mobile/land- phones
● Farmer friendly Mobile Apps
● Single-window access (portal) for
agriculture information; aggregated
from various sources
● Validated and re-purposed by experts
● High quality, actionable information
● Real time information exchange and
analytics
Direct2Farm
Creating an effective content systemfor impactful Agro-advisory services
Content features:● Authoritative● Accurate● Quality controlled● Relevant● Regularly updated● Locally relevant
Content management:● Standard Metadata● Quality control workflows● Interoperable
Delivery System features:● Scalable● Replicable● Transferable● Cost-effective
How will Agro-advisory services deliver this?
Partnerships, alliancesand linkages for creating impactfulAgro-advisory servicesPartnersContent delivery
• MNO-s• MVASP-s• Rural Service
Providers (IKSL)• Apps Developers
AlliancesContent management
• Infomediaries• Agriculture
Universities• NARS (e.g. ICAR)• Agriculture Centres of
Excellence
LinkagesService & product delivery
• Agro-service providers
• NGO-s• Markets• Government
extension services
...and “commitment to quality” brings all together
Information Quality Assurance; for Trustworthiness
Aggregating
Warehousing
Accessing
Disseminating
Feedback
Generic
Customised
•Authenticity of sources•Validated• Updated
• Metadata/Indexing Standards•Re-purposed• Interoperable
• Minimum Distortion• Multiple platforms
•C
ontextualized•
Holistic
•Actionable
• Real-time• Socio-economic impact
In summary● Farmers need information, but they are sometime sceptic
● Because each farmer is operating within its unique climatic, socio-economic and demographic environment, hence one solution does not fit all
● There is a lack of “trust-factor” about the agro-advisory services among farmers (specially the smallholders)
● Agro-advisory services need to deal this by providing
● Authentic & Hyper-localized information
● Taking leverage of “partnerships-alliances-linkages” for maximizing impact and minimizing cost
● Having robust Information Quality Assurance process in place, to win the “trust-factor”
Quality information is key to help the poor farmers address food security challenges
