Empowering the World’s Poorest to Escape Poverty

Building Sustainable Businesses in a Developing World

Grameen Foundation Quick Win Project

Community Level Crop Disease Surveillance

April 2nd, 2009

Improving the lives of small-holder farmers through community level crop disease surveillance

Quick Win Overview

2

Objective

Build and test the viability of a system that uses mobile devices equipped with cameras and GPS to locate, diagnose, and prevent the spread of crop-disease outbreaks and relies upon a network of rural intermediaries for data collection and information dissemination.

Partnerships

•International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

• National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO)

•Grameen Technology Center

Community Knowledge Worker Project

CKW Objectives

• Build a network of rural intermediaries to reach small-holder farmers

• Develop mobile information services that meet the demands of poor farmers

• Create a cost-effective means for

collecting granular data from rural

communities

Community Knowledge Worker Project

•7 month pilot in two sites•Identify, recruit, train, and support CKWs•Rapid prototype 4-5 mobile information services•Conduct 4 mobile surveys using a range of technologies•Track CKW performance and document findings to design model for scaling over time

Quick Win Approach

•Train and support Community Knowledge Workers (CKWs)

•Develop mobile tools and back-end system

•Conduct site visits and take samples

• Analyze data to create information products and maps

• Document findings and fine-tune geospatial application and surveillance system

Why Banana?

• Importance as food crop and cash crop

• Annual losses of $70-$200 million

• High yielding staple food

• Opportunity to monitor resurgence of an existing disease and threat of a new disease outbreak simultaneously

• Resurgence of BXW

• Recent alert for BBTV in Uganda

Distribution of banana in Uganda

Source: Jerome Kubiriba, NARO

Overall control of BBW as per 2008

Source: Jerome Kubiriba, NARO

Geospatial Crop Disease Surveillance Application

• Form-based mobile surveys

• Sent via GPRS to back-end system

• Reports analyzed by agricultural experts

• Affirmative reports are mapped

• Team travels to field to confirm certain percentage (TBD) of affirmative reports

• Target of 1200 surveys over pilot period

Banana production constraints1. Bacterial wilt

wilted banana plant3. Black Sigatoka

weevil corm damage

2. Banana weevil (SMALL ELEPHANT)

6. Banana streak virus

streaked leaf

5. Fusarium wilt

discoloured corm

4. Nematodes

root damage

Yellow leaves

discoloured pseudostem

Dry necrotic leaves

Source: Jerome Kubiriba, NARO

Disease Control Mobile Information Services

• On-demand mobile information service

• Timely information on disease spread

• Actionable tips

• Information on

– Location of clean planting materials

– Control techniques

– Consequences of inaction

– Disease spread information

• Potential to use photos/diagrams/maps

Banana Bunchy Top Disease

What to Do?

DESTROY all infected plants and their suckers

CHECK all your plants

ONLY use healthy planting material

Source: IITA

Banana Bacterial Wilt

BREAK OFF the male budDESTROY sick plants and their suckersUse CLEAN S SUCKERS and CLEAN TOOLS

Source: IITA

Quick Win Analysis and Outputs

• Analyze CKW ability to accurately identify and document disease outbreaks

• Evaluate usefulness of information disseminated

• Assess usability of tool

• Analyze data accuracy and ability to map incidence by pilot area, CKW characteristics, and different classes of mobile technology

• Estimate required frequency/response time by experts

• Map CKW reports to existing incidence reports

• Map location of clean planting materials to outbreaks

• Map affirmative reports over time

Impact of BXW?

Uganda:

annual losses of 70 - 200 million US $

2-3 % of GDP

Burundi and Rwanda:

predicted 100 million US $

Uganda:

annual losses of 70 - 200 million US $

2-3 % of GDP

Burundi and Rwanda:

predicted 100 million US $

GIS output: increase risk awareness e.g. BXW

Source: IITA

Expected Long-Term Impact

• Decrease spread of crop disease , especially in high risk areas affected by endemic and emerging diseases

• Empower small-holder farmers to halt disease spread through access to timely information

• Enable agricultural experts to plan preventative measures in a cost and time-effective manner

• Enhance scientists’ ability to monitor disease outbreaks and disseminate information to farmers in remote areas and rural communities where regular visits by extension agents and agricultural scientists may not be possible

Acknowledgements

• IITA

• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

• CH2M Hill AGCommons

• CGIAR

• FAO

• NARO

Project Details

• Approx. 40 CKWs in two districts

• Three mobile devices

• Two six-week pilots

• Two mobile applications

• Monitoring for at least two diseases in banana

• Three experts

• Back-end data analysis on schedule TBD

• Field visits to take samples every two weeks

• Mapping of results on schedule TBD

• Publically available map products