We've trained a lot of farmers in Ghana now, and each place brings with it new discoveries and new stories. It’s now the turn of the Dangbe East and Akuapem South District farmers to start creating theirs. The program is being made possible through an Esoko-MTN partnership, dubbed “Farmer First”, which will see the Ghanaian and African communications giant sponsoring hundreds of rural farmers to receive price alerts on their mobile phones. Proposed benefits? Empower the farmers with information to bargain better for their produce and enable them to find other markets where they can sell for higher returns. Those changes should increase farmer revenue and improve livelihoods.
But there is a lot of work that must be done to make this happen, and along the way, all I could think in my mind is "this is the real ICT4D". Though we make amazing technology at Esoko, it takes profiling, training, an understanding of market dynamics and a great deal of time to make sure the benefits of that technology are discovered. These trainings are where the real action is.
Information
To determine their
information needs and better tailor the alerts, Esoko profiled a section of
pineapple farmers in those districts. In Fotobi and Oboadaka, both communities in
the Akuapim South District, farmers sang the same information deficit song
which others were singing prior to receiving Esoko alerts. All the farmers
indicated a general lack of information concerning their agricultural
practice. While they indicated that they
get information from their association and from the Ministry of Agriculture, they also expressed how
the information is of little importance especially as far as the marketing of
the produce is concerned. All of the farmers in the community do not know the prices
of pineapples in the bigger markets like Techiman, Kumasi and Takoradi where
most of their traders come from. They are rewarded with GHS .30 (20 US cents) per
pineapple by these traders and processors who come to buy their produce.
The frustration of these farmers can be summed up in the statement of Moses Gatogo, a pineapple farmer in the Oboadaka community: “We sit here and they come and tell us how much they want to give to us, and we can’t say anything because we don’t know. And if we don’t sell too, our pineapples will go bad”.
Mobile
phone use
All these famers have
mobile phones, and have been using them for more than three years. However, the
primary use for the device is as a means communication but not as a source of
information. Some of these farmers have never sent an SMS before. This is where
the Esoko training is very crucial. Esoko trains farmers on sending, checking
and interpreting the messages they will receive, and this takes patience. There is no 'quick fix' or magic bullet in ICT4D.
My experience
I had read of stories of traders paying low
prices for farmers’ produce, but had never had first hand information from a
farmer. The mention of GHS .30 for
one pineapple sent mixed feelings within me. On one hand, I was thinking I
could make some good money if I started trading in pineapples. And then I
started thinking of whether the toil of the farmer for over one year is worth GHS .30. It felt disheartening when I
recollected that the lady close to our office in Accra sells one of the medium sized pineapples
for GHS 2.00 (1.30 USD)! These farmers are really
working for close to nothing, and I believe the intervention will make them see
farming as more of a business than a lifestyle.
Gathering further information from these
farmers, we realised the most expensive household asset most of them had was
either a bicycle or a motorcycle. I asked
one farmer: “So you mean apart from the spraying machine for your farm you
don’t have any household asset?” He answered, “Oh, I have a radio”. “Just that?” was the only thing that could
come out of my mouth. While there are other stories explaining this phenomenon,
it makes basic sense that given more income farmers can purchase more items
that can make their lives more lively. As in many other villages in Ghana, most
of the houses are constructed with mud.
For some farmers, this is going to be the
first time a text message is going to mean something to them and I am seriously
looking forward to this myself. Indeed this is going to be challenging for
those who can neither read nor write. But it was exciting to hear from these farmers that they have relatives who can read and explain messages to them. For
those who can read and write but have never sent an SMS, I gather that this
will not just be a training on reading and interpreting Esoko price alerts, but
also an education on a technology that can be used to source for information
and exchange ideas in a community where the internet and television are
futuristic channels. This is a slow but hopeful step on the road to real development.
