EBS-Spice Rural Portal PN 140310

An EBS-Spice Joint Endeavour

Bangladesh Rural Portal Extending the power of information to agrarian communities of Bangladesh

Product NoteVersion 1.0

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Scope..................................................................................................................................................3

2 Introduction........................................................................................................................................4

2.1 Agriculture in Bangladesh: The Information Challenge................................................................4

2.1.1 The Imperfections in Agriculture Eco-system Often Leads to Exploitation of Farmers:........4

3.0 Overcoming the Information Challenge with m-Governance: The Most Convenient Medium to Provide Information to the Rural communities in developing economies.........................................5

3.1: The Emergence of Voice Platform as the Favored Medium of Information Delivery..............5

4.0 Bangladesh Rural Portal: Empowering rural communities with sustainable innovations................6

5.0 Bangladesh Rural Portal in a Nutshell..............................................................................................7

5.1 Why Bangladesh Rural Portal?.....................................................................................................7

5.2 What information is available under the Bangladesh Rural Portal?............................................7

5.3 How does this service work?.......................................................................................................7

5.4 What is the source of content for this service?...........................................................................8

5.5 How does the user indicate his choice of Markets?...............................................................8

5.6 Can the subscriber personalize this service?.........................................................................8

5.7 Can the subscriber change his preferences?..........................................................................8

5.8 What kind of coverage is provided by this service?...............................................................8

3.9a How many commodities are covered by the service?............................................................8

5.9 Does this service require any special handset?......................................................................9

6.0 Rural Portal: Service Call Flow.......................................................................................................10

6.1 Opening Menu...........................................................................................................................10

6.2 Instant Choice Menu..................................................................................................................11

5.3 Personalization Menu................................................................................................................12

6.4 Main Menu................................................................................................................................13

6.0 Content Flow.................................................................................................................................15

2 March 15, 2010 Rural Portal

Proprietary and Confidential

1 Scope

This document provides you basic facts about Bangladesh Rural Portal. The portal is designed to provide meaningful, economically significant information to the rural populace engaged in agriculture. It introduces the service and provides you key information using the FAQs format. It also gives the general call flow details and the content flow of the service.



2 Introduction

2.1 Agriculture in Bangladesh: The Information Challenge

In rural Bangladesh, an average farmer typically faces information lag on the following:

Weather: Erratic weather can affect his crop to a large extent. The fishermen in coastal belts are especially susceptible to the erratic weather conditions in the oceanic areas.

Lack of access to best agricultural practices: Without access to the latest advances in agricultural sciences and practices, the farmer continues to rely on outdated practices as a result of which the quality and productivity of his crop is not up to standards.

Lack of access to market prices: In the absence of this, he is unable to determine when and which marketplace to take his produce to leading to low price realization.

The Latest in Government Schemes: The ordinary, illiterate farmer is often ignorant of the latest schemes and welfare measures, for example, loans available on special rates, offered by the Bangladesh Government to uplift the economic conditions of the rural populace.

2.1.1 The Imperfections in Agriculture Eco-system Often Leads to Exploitation of Farmers:

Due to non-availability of information, farmers often lack access to the market and are therefore caught in the vicious cycle of suboptimal use of farm inputs, higher costs of credit, and lower price realizations on produce, leading to insignificant disposable income for farmers and their families.

The farmers often get entrapped in a vicious cycle of:

Low Risk Taking Ability Low Investment Low Productivity Weak Market Orientation Low Value Addition Low Margin Low Risk Taking Ability.

This has lead to the Bangladesh agriculture sector becoming generator of only a marginal income to the majority of its proponents.



3.0 Overcoming the Information Challenge with m-Governance: The Most Convenient Medium to Provide Information to the Rural communities in developing economies.

Away from the trendy jest-setting lifestyles of the rich and the famous, the mobile revolution is fast emerging as the most powerful instrument of social change in developing countries around the world. Sample this.

1. In African countries, right from Tanzania to Uganda and South Africa, farmers are reaping the benefits of instant access information such as latest market prices, technical developments, and best practices for growing crops.

2. A London Business School study has concluded that an increase of 10 mobile phones per 100 people in African developing countries has lead to an increase in GDP growth by 0.6 per cent

3.1: The Emergence of Voice Platform as the Favored Medium of Information Delivery

The unique conditions in rural markets makes it imperative to shift away from the traditional preference for text messaging as the favored medium of delivering information such as stock and commodity prices. The text approach has not found favor with the large sections of rural populace that still remain illiterate, mobile shy and therefore not able to access this information.

Spice Digital Limited has actively researched the user behavior of rural mobile subscribers. Our research, collaborated by independent agencies, shows that the Voice remains the preferable media for information delivery for the rural populace. This is also due to the fact that vast segments of the rural population remains illiterate and have heavy preference for localized content. Spice Digital (earlier known as Cellebrum Technologies) has perfected the voice platform for delivery of value added services to customer segments across the country. The organization has, in the process, emerged as the foremost player in the country in this field.



4.0 Bangladesh Rural Portal: Empowering rural communities with sustainable innovations

Bangladesh Rural Portal aims to empower these communities to improve their economic status and stay in touch with the latest developments, anytime and from anywhere. Designed to supplement the information mediums established by the Government of Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Rural Portal helps farmers to realize the following:

Increase in Agriculture Incomes: Giving market prices of not only his proximate markets but also the “benchmark” markets of his state ensures that he can take an informed decision on when and which market to take his produce to, rather than be forced to accept whatever the going rate is when he takes his crop to the market.

Increased Connect with the Government Measures: Bangladesh Rural Portal enables the Government of Bangladesh to extend their reach to the agrarian communities like never before. The micro-level individual connect enables farmers to realize the true benefits from the Government schemes.

Better weather risk management: Unavailability of timely weather information often leads to farmers (especially fishermen in the coastal areas) losing out on optimization of agriculture yields. By providing easily access to weather forecasts, Bangladesh Rural Portal enables farmers to minimize the risk.

Increased Crop Yields: Crop advisories on good agricultural practices enable the farmer to take precautionary measures or pro-active measures to protect or improve his crop. The good agricultural practices are designed so that the farmer receives the appropriate message depending on the growth stage of his crop.

Better quality: Following good practices as well as good post harvest practices enables the farmer to reap a better quality crop which leads to better price realization. Again the messages are designed and scheduled such that they coincide with the measures he should be taking at any given stage of his crop life-cycle.

Better crop planning: A combination of market rates, weather advisory and good agricultural practices would help farmers to take an informed decision on planning for the crops/varieties to cultivate which in future would be monetarily most remunerative to him.



5.0 Bangladesh Rural Portal in a Nutshell

5.1 Why Bangladesh Rural Portal?

The Bangladesh Rural Portal is designed to provide meaningful, high-utility information to the farm community. It marks our foray into the rural areas with sustainable innovations for social change. The steady growth in the rural share of net additions to the cellular subscriber base is an indicator of the usefulness of utility-information on the mobile phone.

5.2 What information is available under the Bangladesh Rural Portal?

The Bangladesh Rural portal has developed the critical mass to provide the following information:

Weather Updates (including Fishermen Weather Advisory for Coastal Areas)

Commodity Prices (from Markets across Bangladesh)

News events from the rural sector

Crop Advisory

o Latest Production Technologies

o Fertilizer Use

o Pest Management

o Irrigation

Government Schemes and Welfare Measures

It also allows subscribers to ask questions on one or more agriculture areas. The service menu can be customized to suit operator requirements.

5.3 How does this service work?

Bangladesh Rural Portal service deploys the IVR platform. Users are required to dial the specified number and follow the given steps. The service has been designed to ensure that



the user is able to access information within three steps. Subscribers can also choose to access important information such as market rates and weather updates through SMS.

5.4 What is the source of content for this service?

The content for this service is sourced from a countrywide commodity exchange, known for its reach in commodity markets at the micro-level. Content such as Weather updates, News, and Crop Advisory are sourced from reliable sources certified by the government.

5.5 How does the user indicate his choice of Markets?

The user enters his STD code to commence service registration. Based on the STD code, the subscriber is offered the list of the five nearest Markets. Out of these, the user can choose three Markets (Please refer to service flow for more details).

5.6 Can the subscriber personalize this service?

This service is completely customizable. The kind of information provided to the user depends totally on his requirements.

5.7Can the subscriber change his preferences?

The subscriber can change his preferences at any point in time. The subscriber can refer to a separate Help menu to seek assistance.

5.8What kind of coverage is provided by this service?

The service covers over all recognized markets across the country.

3.9a How many commodities are covered by the service?

The service covers all major commodities traded in recognized markets across the country. The Commodity options (Categories) are as follows:

Cereals

Pulses

Spices

Vegetables

Fruits

Oilseeds8

March 15, 2010 Rural PortalProprietary and Confidential

Medicinal Plants

Fiber crops

Flowers

Others (include Metals)

5.9 Does this service require any special handset?

The service is available on all types of handsets.



6.0 Rural Portal: Service Call Flow



6.1 Opening Menu



6.2 Instant Choice Menu



5.3 Personalization Menu



5.4 Main Menu



6.0 Content Flow



Content Provider

VendorVEL Platform

Office

Subscribed Base

Xml files

High bandwidth internet pipe

SMS broadcast

Xml to voice

CONTEN

T FLOW

F

FLOW

Documents

EBS-Spice Rural Portal PN 140310