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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 The workshop in Arusha explored the East African/Tanzanian environment for village energy, local case studies, challenges and opportunities, with a view to formulating policy recommendations for policymakers, funders, NGOs and other stakeholders the region. An important part of the workshop, and indeed the whole Smart Villages initiative work programme, was to gather evidence from existing projects that have provided or facilitated sustainable off-grid energy solutions in the developing world.The workshop gathered more than 50 experts, including policymakers, NGOs, off-grid energy entrepreneurs and others to look for solutions to providing energy to villages off the grid.
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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: [email protected]
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