Use and sustain ICT Innovations for Smallholder Agriculture: Experiences from ICRISAT

Vision A prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics

Mission To reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics

ICRISAT Locations in the Semi-arid Tropics

55 countries 6.5 million sq km 2.5 billion people

Headquarters- Patancheru, Telangana, India

ESA Regional

Hub-Nairobi, Kenya

WCA Regional

Hub- Bamako, Mali

Center of Excellence in ICT Innovations for Agriculture Provides a platform to bring ICT innovations in

Agriculture by integrating science, technology and value chain approaches (Farm to Fork)

The Biggest Challenge

The Looming Perfect Storm

Innovations in linking research-extension-farmers-markets

Expert (Extn. Officer) : Farmer ratio – 1: 2000 Contact intensity - 40 minutes/farmer/year by Govt Extension 3 hours per/target farmer/year by farmers association Require 675,000 extension personnel Dwindling financial resources; Less and less investments from

state and central governments

This is where ICT has a role!

Traditional Extension Systems: Existing Scenarios (Indian Case)

ICT for Development

Assessment of Information Flows

Assessment of Information Flows

NSSO 2005

Addakal Rural Hub

HUB

Gudibanda

Janampet

Kandur

Komireddipalli

Nijalapur

Polkampalli

Thimmapur

Vemula

First Generation ICT4D Approaches

Links to “end user” is not yet established

Local conditions often not in favor of last mile connectivity

PC-based “delivery” systems picking up (eg. Eastern Africa, especially Kenya and Malawi)

In all most all the projects the participation of agricultural education and research institutions appears to be marginal

Localization and customizability of content are not practiced on a significant scale

First Generation ICT4D Models: Experiences in SA &

SSA

Second Generation ICT4D Approaches

Virtual Knowledge Networks Mobile for Development

Expert – Farmer Farmer – Expert Expert - Expert

ICRISAT’s M4D consortium project is serving nearly 10,000 farmers: regularly sending useful crop advisories as voice messages

NKN & NOFN in India As on May 2014: KNK: 135 NARS Institutes covered. NOFN: WIP @ 95420 Gram Panchayats out of 2,50,000.

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Information flow of Krishi Gyan Sagar

M Commerce Power – Case Study

Population – 39 Mln

Tele-density – 60%

Mobile users 2011 – 23.4 Mln

Registered M Com base of Safaricom – 14 Mln

Population – 1230 Mln

Tele-density – 74%

Mobile users 2011 – 900 Mln

Registered M Com base of Airtel - 0.1 Mln

5% penetration of the mobile base would mean a monthly transactional value Rs.27000 Mln

Kenya India

Kenya’s population is

only 3% population of

India’s, but Kenya has

140 times more

M-Commerce users than

India.

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BUY / SELL Platform – using M-Commerce / Bitcoins..? Mobile money: register and load cash at your nearest mobile service provider outlet.

Bitcoin: Bitcoin is a digital currency, which is supported by a P2P network of computers across the internet that act as servers to process the financial transactions of this currency. Bitcoin is nothing more than a mobile app or computer program that provides a personal Bitcoin wallet and allows a user to send and receive bitcoins with them. Bitcoin network is shares a public ledger called the "block chain". This ledger contains every transaction ever processed, allowing a user's computer to verify the validity of each transaction. The authenticity of each transaction is protected by digital signatures corresponding to the sending addresses. At the end of August 2013, the value of all bitcoins in circulation exceeded US$ 1.5 billion with millions of dollars worth of bitcoins exchanged daily.

Pest Monitoring Module plays a pivotal role in transforming the way pest surveillance is done by automating and standardizing the way field data is captured and enabling easy transmitting of the same which in turn help build better and more reliable expert systems over a period of time

This solution consists of a surveillance device (Green Tablet) preloaded with a KGS application using which one can survey different regions and crops to monitor the growth of pest and disease

Pest monitoring Module

Krishi Gyan Sagar and Krishi Vani

receives the Flame Award 2013

For showcasing innovative use of technology of the decade

Participatory Extension Video

Digital Green - Bhoochetana

Execution Method

Sharing the right Information with the right people at the right time through the right channel