FarmerNet: Beyond 2010

The FarmerNet project donor cycle ended in December 2010. Yet Fusion in collaboration with Strategic partners: SEEDS, ICTA, and Sabre Technologies are moving forward in 2011 to popularize the system with in rural farmer and trader communities.

The strategy for 2011, is to focus on clusters. Up to 2010, Fusion focused on mass scale awareness programs that attracted 200+ farmers in one place. Honest intention and motivation to use the system was evident in every farmer we interacted, yet actual usage (sending SMS) to the system, was somehow, not happened as expected.
In some cases, Fusion found that it was more to do with a bevy of complex social parameters coming in to play.
Viscous cycle of credit dependency from the intermediaries, and non exposure to technical know how for small scale farmers were seen as major barriers to penetrate.

To overcome this situation, Fusion worked out with SEEDS, to start a focused marketing campaign. We would select 3 districts with tech savvy SEEDS field coordinators. We have earmarked 3 districts, for the first quarter, and will be training the SEEDS coordinators to promote the solution. Very encouragingly SEEDS have seen FarmerNet as a complementary service in their solution package to rural micro finance beneficiary customer base. This will ensure a ready made customer segment using FarmerNet to increase their options for a better price, both farmers and traders.

From March 2011, a 6-month campaign will start focusing on 3 districts.

FarmerNet: featured in “Lankadeepa”

FarmerNet was featured in this edition of Lankadeepa on March 13, 2010. This article captures the awareness program Fusion did with 200+ farmers and traders in Welimada, which was coordinated by SEEDS.

Are we truely serving him / her?

Yes we have launched it. But it is only a prototype. Not a final product.

FarmerNet is only a Prototype at this stage. But we notice different emerging trends. People getting excited are ICT4D activists, Researchers and Donors, not the actual target community; rural farmer and small trader.

In a recent presentation at CABI Global Summit, London, about Fusion’s learning curve from Agri-clinics to FarmerNet, we could successfully capture our true feelings in one single photograph & a quote;

empowering small farmers

“He is our target group, he is innocent and poor, yet smiling and optimistic. We learn a lot from him and we strive to empower him. But we sincerely dont know, whether we are doing the justice to him, as yet” (Quoted by MD, Fusion).

Seeing the mixed response we receive at ground level, we recognize what a long journey that we have to go. Everybody like this. But they dont know how to use it for their benefit.So many factors are contributing to this ‘Dont Know’.

Hence at this stage we are pooling our internal tacit resources of 50 year long sarvodaya staff to refine our understanding into this small farmer – our key target customer. It may be Customer orientation and Segmentation in business jargon. To us, it is about learning, feeling, smelling and tasting his taste, so that we may be able to find complex barriers sitting between him / her, the small mobile gadget sitting in their own palm, and their decision to learn to push the appropriate buttons, in required sequence to upload the rest of the world about their desire! (I have 500kg of Wattakka @ the price of 50Rs/kg. Are you interested?)

Farmernet වියාපෘති එළිදැක්ම

Launch

අන්තර්ජාලය හා ජංගම දුරකතනය ඔස්සේ ගොවි මහතුන් සහ වෙළද මහතුන් මුණගස්වන farmernet නවතම සේවා පද්ධතිය 2009 සැප්තැමිබර් 11 දින නුවරඑළිය ගල්පාලම ගම්මානයේදි එළි දැක්වේ.

නුවරඑළිය ගමක ගොවි මහතකු තමා ලග ඇති එළවළු තොගය පිළිබඳ විස්තරය සිය ජංගම දුරකතනය ඹස්සේ SMS කෙටි පණිවුඩයක් මගින් 0115 512 512 ඔස්සේ www.farmer.lk වෙබි අඩවියට තොරතුරු ඇතුලත් කරයි, එසැනකින් එම පණිවුඩය farmernet සේවාව සමග ලියාපදින්චි වී සිටින එම වර්ගයේ එළවළු මිලදී ගන්නා වෙළද මහතුන් වෙත SMS පණිවිඩයක් ලෙසින්, ගොවි මහතාගේ දුරකතන විස්තරද ඇතුලත්ව වෙළද මහතුන්ගේ දුරකතනයට යොමු කරනු ලබයි. ඒ අනුව ගොවි මහතා (ඉල්ලූමිකරු) හා වෙළද මහතා (සැපයුමිකරු) සිය දුරකතන ඹස්සේ එකඟතාවයට පැමිණ එම ගණුදෙනුව අවසන් වනුයේ රස්තියාදුවකින් තොරව, දෙදෙනාටම තෘප්තිමත් විය හැකි සාධාරණ මිලක් ලැබෙන සාධාරණ ගණුදෙනුවක් ලෙසිනි.

මෙය තවත් ප්‍රබන්ධ කතාවක් නොවේ. සර්වෝදය තොරතුරු තාක්ෂණ වැඩසටහන-ෆියුෂන් (FUSION) මගින් හඳුන්වා දී තිබෙන Farmernet සේවාව ඔස්සේ සැබවින්ම මේ දිනවල සිදුවන්නකි.

තොරතුරු හා සන්නිවේදන තාක්ෂුණ නියෝජිතායතනය (ICTA), සර්වෝදය-එක්සත් රාජධානිය (Sarvodaya-UK) , සර්වෝදය ආර්ථික ව්යවසාය සංවර්ධන සේවාව (SEEDS) මෙම නවතම සේවාවේ ප්‍රමුඛ හවුල් කරුවන් වන අතර සන්නිවේදන තාක්ෂණ පහසුකමි සලසමින් Sabre Technologies (Ltd) සහ ලංකාබෙල් (Lankabell) ආයතන අත්වැල් බැඳගෙන ඇත.

ගොවීන් සහ වෙළඳුන් ජංගම දුරකතනය හා අන්තර්ජාලය ඔස්සේ මුණගස්වන farmernet සේවාව හා බැඳුණු www.farmer.lk වෙබි අඩවිය විවෘත කිරීම සහ එම සේවාව නිළවශයෙන් දියත් කිරීමේ උත්සවය 2009 සැප්තැමිබර් 11 අද දින පෙ.ව. 10.00 ට සර්වෝදය සංගමයේ නිර්මාතෘ හා නායක ආචාර්ය ඒ.ටී. ආරියරත්න මහතා ප්‍රමුඛව සහ අනුග්‍රාහක සහයෝගි ආයතන ප්‍රධානීන්ගේ සහභාගිත්වයෙන් නුවරඑළිය, ගල්පාලම විහාරස්ථානයේදී උත්සවාකාරයෙන් සිඳුවේ.

මෙම නවතම සේවාවේ ප්‍රථිලාභ භුක්ති විදිමට සහ එයට සමිබන්ධවීමට කැමති ගොවීන් හා වෙළඳුන් අදම අපව අමතන්න. ග්‍රාමීය ජනතාවට, සිය පරමත දේශයේ අවශ්යතා සහ පහසුකමි සමඟ ගැලපෙන පිරිවැය අඩු, භාවිත පහසුව සහිත farmernet වැඩපිළිවෙල දිගුකලක සිට ගමට තොරතුරු තාක්ෂණය ගෙනයාමේ පුරෝගාමි කාර්යභාරයක් ඉටුකල සර්වෝදය තොරතුරු තාක්ෂණ වැඩසටහන-ෆියුෂන් (FUSION) www.farmer.lk හී වැදගත් සන්ධිස්ථානයක් වන අතර මෙම මහගු සේවාව ප්‍රජාව වෙත තිළිණ කිරීමට හැකිවීම අද අප ලද ඉමහත් සතුටකි.

මේ දිනවල බහුලව කතා බහට ලක්වන කරණයක් වන ගොවිමහතුන්ගෙ එළවලු නිසි කලට වෙලාවට විකුණාගත නොහෙකි විමෙන් සිදුවන විශාල හනියට farmernet කදිම පිලියමක්වනු නොඅනුමානය.

වැඩි විස්තර සදහා සර්වෝදය ෆියුෂන් අයතනයේ ක්‍රියාකාරි සමාජිකයෙකු හමුවි අදම ඔබගේ ලියාපදින්චිය තහවුරු කරගන්න.

දුරකතන 011 2867590 හෝ 0718304334 ප්‍රසාද් පෙරේරා.

Lessons from the field

Following were the key observations from last week’s 4 day long campaign carried out at 8+ villages in Nuwara Eliya district.

Young farmers are very encouraging (they are familiar with SMS)

We have clearly noticed that, young farmers (who have just stepped to the farming field) are well familiar with Mobile phones, SMS and computers. Seemingly they are a promising  target group .

Opinion leaders – (importance and power)

Special set of people we have identified throughout the campaign, who are farmers, yet they have acquired some leadership among other Farmers. What ever said and donethrough these leaders, other farmers will never ignore, at least will think twice without saying ‘No’.

(One strategy: that we plan to arrange special in house meeting inviting them to sit  side by side with traders. So we assume the outcomeswill automatically seep to other farmers).

Laptop demonstration was devastating

When we carry out our research survey (during the campaign) we had demonstrated the FarmerNet online system to gather their feed back. We have started it at Seetha Eliya village, where very young crowd interacted with us. But we notice they were reluctant, even become panic, to touch the mouse pad. That demonstration tend to form some conclusions in their mind that  “without having computer knowledge, we will never use FarmerNet ”.

Since we opted not to use Laptop demonstrations anymore, hence switched to SMS text pad to show them how to type using quick memory (without just remembering the Sample SMS).

SMS Parameter QTY Kg measurement issues

What is the default Quantity value used to apply in commodity selling?

That was one question we raised at multiple villages.

General Answer was “KELI” it means 50Kg units. At the  point of sale this was common to both farmers and traders. In case of  Potato they use a measurement call “HONDARA” some time they make valuations based on cultivation Area (Square feet), and “GONI”, but still KELI is the most common scale.

Buyer’s response

Considering buyers at Nuwara Eliya wholesale market, Road buyers and Middlemen, most of them were not ready to accept the FarmerNet. One common statement was;  “We have our long known farmers who will sell vegetable only to me.  So we do not need any more!”.

But there were traders who were ready to try FarmerNet. Unfortunately these traders are very few in number. According to them, there were numerous new systems but none did work for them. Such bad experiences were caused by systems attempted by several companies (which could not be verified accurately).

Some Farmer community rejecting the System

Specially in Galpalama village where there is much more demand for vegetable supply, we have met few farmers who were so negative about the system because they think there supply demand will be distorted by the system.

Final Day of NE Campaign

Date 10^th July, 2009, We got up little late today since SEEDS Thilak has gone to Colombo, Jayalath was busy with his program. So we stayed relax till 7AM, and had a team chat. Since we have smoothly completed most of the targets this morning we have checked what we have missed during last few days, and we have found out that the except Survey we have arched all other objectives as adding new farmers nearly 50, adding new traders nearly 50. When we digging the problem for Survey which had 3 parts as;

• Online Platform part
• Mobile technology part
• Farmerner SMS parameter part

We have found out following answers for the question “why we couldn’t complete the survey forms on the field”;

• This was the first time we met these new Farmers/Traders, Since they are so busy during the whole day, it was hard to keep them wait for us to get more information and fill applications

• Target Crowd as Farmers, not live in NE town. They all are 8 KM or more away from the town and we can call it is rural base community. So most of them nearly 98% of them never touch a computer (DESTOPS PC’S) and never heard about “Internet” So for them to fill the first part of the survey totally valueless.

• There are some farmers/traders who are not so happy to answer us, anyhow we have filled the registration form from them, but no chance to fill the Survey from them.

• Some people never used mobile phone and they do not want to use one in future, because of this problem it was hard for us to fill even the second part of the survey from.

• ince this was the first time these farmers/traders heard about Farmernet and its activities, Answering the 3^rd Part of the Survey from was clueless, because they never try to send the farmernet SMS, even-though It was hard for them to understand the parameters of the SMS since this was the very first time they have seen this and heard. So we couldn’t fill the third part of the survey form and get their feedback on the same, anyhow we have thrown some general questions to get us some idea about what they feeling sending this SMS, and its parameters.

Eg: What kind of Qty measurement they use?

Have they send any SMS to reality Shows

Have they used any Username Password for any Bank work (ATM)

So after this team discussion as usual we push the van and start it, then we went to SEEDS office and thanks the SEEDS staff for helping our work, unfortunately Thilak was not there, but we met the Center Manager. After that we went to NE-Economical Center to collect some registration forms which we have left yesterday for filling. At the NE- EC we have had some chat with few Traders whom we met yesterday, and after collecting all the Registrations forms we return to Hotel and Checked out at around 11AM, unfortunately upto now we did not have our breakfast so team thought of going Ginigathhena and having very late breakfast there.

After completing this Hard work we have reached the Colombo at around 8-9 PM and that was the all about this great journey to Nuwara Eliya for Farmernet awareness Campaign Session 02.

Day 03

Date 9^th July 2009, we got up early morning and get ready to be at NE District Center (DS) by around 8.15AM. Since yesterday we experienced that Van need push to start, with all fedup faces we walk to the van, nothing have changed it need push to start, so we have done the same thing like yesterday and paring do not have this for tomorrow.  We start the Van and quickly went to DS ofiice, at the security I have contacted Jayalath and he got us the permission to enter to NE-DS. We went to “ Apada Kalamana Karana Anshaya” where Jayalth is working. I went to NE-DS with Sudantha and we met so many staff members pass out from J’pura University. Infact Sudanatha also from J’pura and being a lecturer there It was helpful us to get these peoples help without bugging them. Anyhow we send our letter to Director General at NE-DS, with few staff persons help. Unfortunately we were little late, and Director has already confirmed few extra events on the same meeting. So that strongly considering this matter he has offered us a time slot in next month meeting and they have noted all our office details to send official letter regarding the same. As per the information I have received, for this meeting there will be people who represent each body of agricultural sector even NE Traders association leaders too.

Since it didn’t work, and Jayalath could not join with us in the morning, we have asked him to get us the contacts at the NE Economic Center – Traders association Presidents. Then he found us the Name as Mr.  M. M. C. Lalith, who is a president. So we went to the NE Economic center and met Mr Lalith. He was really good person and he showed the other shops, where we can meet some more traders and get information. After little chat with Mr Lalith we had a small walk around the Economical Center and we have noticed there is new Price display board. Then we went to some shops and questioned about the price board, All of them told the same thing saying now one can see the board and it is very hard to read what is on it because of the height and the distance of the ground level to the digital board.

At the same time we have visited nearly 10-15 shops around the NE EC, and spoke to the Shop owners, considering most of the answer we received regarding the system, was not a 100% successful. All these traders have been experienced so many systems and from one clue they are predicting whether this is going to work for them or not. But 50% of the traders are on a middle answer saying lets do and see. Also nearly 01% are keen to know the system advantages and wanted to help us. Most of the NE EC shop owners were Tamil and even the people who work these shops are Tamil people and they rarely speak Sinhala, So at this point Shiva was so helpful and he did all the communication part on behalf of us.

By the time we finish the NE EC that was at around 12.30PM, then we all went to town to have lunch, on the way Jayalath called me and told that he will be coming to meet us so that we can go to meet some more buyers.  At around 1.30PM Jayalath came and we start our journey to “Palagolla” area passing “Topspas” which located nearly 18KM away from the NE town. Our min target was to meet some middle mans and Whole sellers near the main road. So with Jayalath’s Help we have visited 3-4 road seller shops who are call as Whole sellers, and mass scale middle mans. Most of them were Tamil people and again we used Shiva to communicate with them and to fill our forms.

Also before palagolla, area call Dunsinen Junction we went to Tamil kolany where there are few Whole sellers available and total community was Tamils and Shiva handled the all of them and at this point I have realize my invitation to him was not a waste at all. Just like Shiva Sunil also helped us covering the whole events taking snaps and video recording, at the same time he helped to fill registration forms from buyers/sellers.

These middle mans does not have any idea about what we are talking since they just know how to buy the product and sell to some one, anyhow it was little hard to communicate with them at the same time these Tamil people are scared to give there details for us.

That was the end of the 3^rd day and we went to NE DS and drop the Jayalath at around 5.30PM, Jayalath has promised us to get some few more buyers within next two weeks and I must mention that he is having huge contact database which really can not categorize as per person or the work they do, basically he knows most of them staying in NE.

Day 02 of the NE Campaign

Date 8^th July 2009, we all got up at around 6AM and it was really cold with foggy.  We all get ready by 8AM get on to Van to go to SEEDS. Just as I thot the vehicle is very Old one and it did not start, non of the team members happy about the vehicle or either with the Driver since he become kind of annoying carless driver. Hence now we have no option we all get down and push the van to the top of the hills and I am telling you that was so irritating for me because I am loosing my time. After few Hotel stff help we managed to start vehicle  and we went to SEEDS office to meet Thilak, Unfortunately Thilak has given urgent work. So we have to find our own way with my self, Sudantha, Sunil and Shiva. But Thilk given us a Contact name and address in “Piduruthlagala”. So we went to Piduruthalagala and it was 11KM Away from the NE town. After reaching piduruthalaga we have to stop the Van and walk few miles to the given address. It was so windy day and really hard for us to reach the address which was located top of the hills.

Anyhow we reached the place and meet the given contact person after discuss few information with her, we proceed to few other houses via her contacts. Piduruthalaga was huge village and one home to next home distance nearly 2-3 acres due to farming. We have met few good contacts who are expert on farming buying/selling procedure. They have shred so many ideas and details with us, Also they are willing to help us for further success on this project. We have filled nearly 10 registration forms within this village and there were some middle man traders too.

At round 12.30 Thilak has called and told that he will be joining  with us in short time so that we decide to go to” Galpalama” Sarvodaya Center and wait till Thilak comes. Thilak reached there by 1PM and with the help of Sarvodya Center Staff in Galpalama we reach the Galpalama Farmers. Compare to other villages we can say (As per Our Experience) these farmers has enough business and still they are out of commodity to supply as per the market demand. This whole area popular as “Kadapola” and If you are from Nuwara Eliya you should be knowing that Kadapola is the most famous place to buy Vegetables.

Anyhow we have collected nearly 10 farmers and start the awareness program with the group discussions. We were so surprised talking to them and at the same time it was bit  annoying to talk with these Galpalama farmers. Because when we say we are going to give best possible service to Farmers and get them good price ignoring Middle man….., then all these farmes strat telling us no we need middle man it is not good to drop them with this system. Also they were So negative about the system and no one accepted that this will serve farmers life.  But ultimately when we are keep questioning them we got to know that they are the people who has participate few Farmernet events at the early stages and they are really scared that they will lose the demand for the vegetables in Galpalama area due to this system. Somehow we managed to get their registration to the system and asked them to continually give us the feed backs regarding new ideas.

Form there we proceed to “Ruwan Eliya”  Village call Dharmapalpura, there we faced totally different story, it was 6KM away from the NE town,  there were nearly 10 to 13 people who really interested about the system. These people were bugging us to find them a market since they do not have good market for their products. This was one of the great campaign we had and their coordination was more than we expected. Infact there are few farmers who are using very latest mobile phones with up-to-date technology and most of the crowd well aware about SMS systems.

We have finished the campaign at around 6PM and return to SEEDS office, On the way I have contacted Jayalath and checked his schedule for tomorrow, Then he told that if we can handover official letter asking awareness for the NE Agricultural committee members and the District Secretariat at the NE District Center at the NE Agricultural committee, which is going to be on tomorrow. Since this was very interesting event where we can aware all the government level offices including Buyers/Sellers committee members within NE area. So we went to SEEDS office and draft a letter in Sinhala Language.

After all that around 7.30PM we went to the Hotel and start planning next day.

1st Date of the NE second Campaign.

Date was 7^th July 2009, I was getting ready for this journey nearly 2 weeks ago, and this time it was not so easy since there were many task due to be completed.

• Complete Farmernet Technical part (hosting, Domain name, etc..)
• Integrate SMS gateway with the system
• Check the each part of the online system to make sure it is in order.
• Arrange Campaign schedule with Seeds staff and Jayalath, check with their schedules to arrange meetings
• Find Solution for Internet issue (Internet Dongal)
• Arrange village farmers and make sure that they are ready when we are having awareness campaigns
• Booking a vehicle and arrange financial budgets, changing approved Cheques, etc..
• Design, print and photocopy application forms and detail sheets nearly 80+ sets.
• Arrange Equipments to be taken such as video cam, projector, Screen, etc. and make sure everything working in order.
• Find Campaign Helpers (Volunteers) for this program since there are no office colleges joining with me.

Anyhow, I couldn’t completed the SMS gateway integration with the Lankabell due to some technical problem at the Saber side, So I was not ready with the SMS system till 6^th Night, and hence there were no options I was asked saber to roll back the system to previous test Number. So that still I can show the demo’s to the crowd.

This time we couldn’t get sarvodaya, because all the vehicles has been busy with north area travels, So we have given a Private cab service Van with the driver Call Thilak.

After completing all these I went to sleep around 10.30PM but it was not a good day since I was so sick with bad flu virus. In the night I got high fever and I even felt cancelling all that and posepond the trip by one day, But I couldn’t do anything since the schedule was fixed with each of the seeds staffs. Somehow with the fever I planed to go in the morning.

7 – 11th July – activity plan

Following are next week activity report for the farmernet project.

Since we have completed the technical side of the Farmernet project, now we are going to deeply involve with the awareness programs. Therefore from July 7^th to 11^th we have planed below activities. These campaigns will be in Nuwara Eliya area and we have chosen these villages at the initial stage.

කඳපොල ,මාගස්තොට, බ්ලැක් පූල්, සීතාඑළිය, පලාගොල්ල, නානුඔය, බොරලන්ද, හාවාඑළිය, ජයවර්ධනපුර, ටොප්ස්පාස්, පිදුරුතලාගල, ශාන්තිපුර,   බොපතතලාව

Activity plan with the schedule dates;

1^st day we will be covering at least 5 villages with Jayantha Ayya’s lead. This day we will be sharing information individually and will identify the most active person within the village. So that we will request him to arrange us small group discussion or awareness campaign collecting some people.  At the same time we will be taking some personal surveys within these villages.

2^nd Day Jayantha Ayya will not be available, So we will use Jayalath’s Contact on the second day and will visit 4 to 5 village to do the individual and group surveys. At the same time we will be visiting the trades, who recommended by jayalath. Evening will be visiting telecenter and meet manoj and hope to built good relationship with Jayalath and manoj since these 2 are not coordinating very well. Will get Manoj’s help for 3rd day work and his contacts access for our program.

3^rd day, we will be having few awareness campaign according to the feed back we are going to receive from 1st day and 2nd day visits. If chosen active person get us t least 20++ participants we will conduct the Campaigns. Also we will visit Bopaththalawa and Shanthipura to check how pervious campaign farmers doing and offer their password and username to use the system.

4^th Day we will use Thilak’s Contacts (SEEDS EPO) to visit buyers and the NE Buyer association for an awareness program. Also on the same day we will be visiting long distance villages for individual Surveys and awareness programs.

5^th day, If there are still pending work, we will be staying on this day. If not 4^th night we will be traveling to Colombo.

Main Goals:

• Add at least 50 Traders with good awareness about the system
• Add another 50 farmers to the system
• Meet the in charge at the Buyers Association
• At least 3 awraness campaigns to be conducted
• Fill out at lest 50-100 Survay form and some personal interviews record on a camera.
• Find out following links and work on it real time;
  Gunadasa sell to –> Ajith
  Saman buy from –> Aakmon
  So that we will add these two parties and will ask them to give a free trial trade transaction on the system.