ICTforAg 2020 Recap

Digital Technology and Its Role in Advancing and Ensuring Resilience for Youth in Agri-food Systems beyond COVID-19

The session focused on finding innovative and meaningful ways to facilitate the use of digital technologies to strengthen the contributions of youth in agri-food systems. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Simple communication tools like Videos, text messages, WhatsApp chats and audio through the internet, mobile phones, and computers can be utilized to develop effective digital literacy programs for youth

  • Digital literacy programs having components of digital money transfers are more effective and get high responses from youth as seen in Feed The Future ADVANCE II project and Mercy Corps- Agrioven project

  • Poor accessibility in terms of internet connectivity, logistics, and inadequate bandwidth are the key challenges in providing digital solutions in rural areas of LMICs

This session was organized and put together by VSFS interns at the USAID Bureau of Resilience and Food Security Inclusive Development Division. The panelists spoke at length about their activities in Ghana, Guatemala, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that were focused on finding innovative and meaningful ways to facilitate the use of digital technologies to strengthen their use in agri-food systems. Further, the panelists also expanded upon the usage of certain specific technologies and how they have contributed to empowering youth while also achieving the goals of the implementing organization. The session was concluded with a discussion on challenges faced with the particular technologies in use and certain solutions undertaken to overcome those challenges.

Panelists:

  • Rene Patel Lopez, Program Implementation Officer, Mercy Corps

  • Pearl Ackah, Private Sector Team Leader, USAID Ghana

  • Bisimwa Kabomboro Bertin, Gender, Youth and Social Inclusion Specialist, Feed the Future, USAID

  • Eileen Markert, Marisa Tiscareno and David Amoako, VSFS Interns, USAID Bureau of Resilience and Food Security Inclusive Development Division

  • DRC - Strengthening the Value Chain

    The theory of change followed by Feed the Future is about activities that are implemented successfully using a gender-sensitive market system approach. In this context, they consider youth to be a unique target. In the DRC, as a part of their strengthening value chain activities, they are working on youth engagement in the value chain from the perspective of social inclusion and youth employment. Within this, they organize and use technology to empower youth and reduce the digital gender divide.

    Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, use of technology increased manifold as information had to be disseminated remotely. Videos, text messages, and audio through the internet, mobile phones, and computers were used to address the issue of illiteracy often found among young people and women in rural areas by ensuring that they participate in training to access information. Feed the Future also experimented with mobile payments in terms of the transfer of cash to adapt agricultural businesses as a rural solution. They also used a virtual training series with WhatsApp group discussions.

  • Guatemala – Agrijoven

    Agrijoven is a project developed through Mercy Corps and supported by the private organisation Faith Groups and Ronald Hapse from the USA. It was implemented from March 2016 to August 2018, with financial assistance from USAID. The objective of the project was to work alongside youth in rural areas of Guatemala, concentrating on age groups of 15–24 years old, with the intention of looking for opportunities to generate income from economic endeavors, increase local employment, and stop illegal migration.

    The possibilities of these opportunities were analysed at the local level, with the project allowing for the organisation of 65 youth groups. Within the 65 groups, 1060 young people took part, with 49% being girls and 51% being boys. These groups were taught a new model of microfinance centred on self-savings in order to generate a small amount of capital and work that they could immediately invest in agricultural activities. In addition to self-savings and the formation of capital, supporting commercial agriculture to produce crops that were primarily intended to be sold in markets was also explored. Agrijoven enabled the 65 youth groups to reach more than USD 111,000 in savings. Through inter-loaning, the groups undertook 934 loan transactions worth more than USD 100,000. The funds were utilized for agricultural activities, such as the purchase of the best seeds, best fertilizers, and also certain technologies that were needed to produce the best quality products. Overall, the project enabled the transcendence of these youth groups and helped Mercy Corps understand that certain businesses are extremely interested in youth who are driven to participate in agriculture.

  • Ghana - Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) II

    The ADVANCE II activity is one of the flagship projects under the Feed the Future initiative in Ghana. The core role of this activity was to increase the competitiveness of the maize, rice, and soy value chains in Ghana.

    Sustainability was built into the theory of change, and it was modelled around the out grower business model. The out grower business model is a backward-integrated model where processing companies, lead farmers, agro-input dealers, or aggregators are enabled to interact with and provide services to smallholder farmers. The services include production mechanization, access to finance and the provision of improved inputs, seeds, and technologies etc. In order to ensure the inclusion and attraction of youth into the project as well as increase their participation in the agriculture sector, ICT was utilized.

    The reason behind attracting and integrating youth into this project was Ghana’s ageing population; the average age of farmers in the country is 60 years. ICT was utilised in order to get the youth to find agriculture as a viable employment opportunity and for them to experience agriculture in a way that can then be developed in their own areas. ICT helped enable access, develop experience, and, most importantly, develop partnerships.

Adoption of specific technologies for youth empowerment

  • Radio

Even though most people do not relate radio to ICT, it is still a very important tool, especially for outreach to remote areas. Utilizing radio, ADVANCE II was able to create regular listenership groups, which provided an opportunity to bring the youth in the neighbourhood to participate in the agricultural sector. This helped disseminate information regarding agricultural extension services. The programme was created in partnership with Farm Radio International.

  • Mobile phones

Working in partnership with mobile network operators, access to cheaper handsets was provided. Affordable handsets were distributed to people so that they could participate in the agriculture sector. In partnership with Vodafone, farmer clubs were created where, via a dial-in code or text message prompts, services such as extension service information, weather information for the day, or an interactive voice response to discuss a particular situation could be obtained. A platform for the marketing and dissemination of information about the buying and selling of goods was also created.

  • Tablets

Tablets enabled the creation of offline applications that could be used in the field to conduct training on a demonstration farm, even at the furthest points in the northern parts of Ghana.

  • Smart card

The smart card is an ID system that was developed by the ADVANCE II project as a way of identifying beneficiaries. These were utilised as a form of beneficiary identification, but the project helped realise that having access to the card was the first source of identification for most people. Therefore, for most of the mobile farmers, this became another source of identification, which could help them open a bank account and utilise the card in the outgrower business model. For instance, a farmer could go to the agro-input dealer and collect farm inputs using the card by noting that they belong to a particular outgrower. 

  • Graphic Information Systems (GIS)

GIS helps bring in students from universities in the area to come and work on farms. GIS enables us to map out beneficiary farms to ensure an accurate forecast of production information. The database created helped launch agricultural insurance and provides that service as a tool for smallholder farmers where they are able to get an index insurance to support their transactions.

  • Climate-resilient technologies

Technologies such as irrigation systems with bottles, greenhouses, and macro tunnels were used to allow the youth to engage in climate resilient agriculture.

  • Training videos

In order to learn new agricultural techniques, training videos were used as a part of the Agrijoven project. The youth engaged were also taught how to create films and to make educational videos. In the DRC, training via videos was provided to the youth in rural areas where it was not possible for the team to be physically present. One of the strategies used was to select champions among the youth as volunteers. The volunteers helped disseminate information in their areas and in cooperatives while also helping others participate in the process.

  • System of drawing techniques

It is a graphic, figurative language for representation, communication, and design. It is a language with systemic analysis and planning in which elements are assembled in a codified language and all of the tools are visual. This helps in reaching a large audience when sports and radio broadcasts are also used.

Challenges in technology adoption and use

  • COVID-19

Agricultural demands, particularly with respect to food security, were critical during the COVID-19 lockdowns. However, it was also important to prevent agrarian households from having contact with individuals who were infected. Hand washing and wearing of masks came with limitations on the amount of water available and income for investments in masks. Furthermore, training could not be conducted for large groups. Alternative solutions such as text messages were used to provide recommendations on how to protect lives and how to better manage agricultural activities while limiting one’s exposure to potential infection.

  • Access to last mile connectivity

Internet connectivity and adequate bandwidth are not omnipresent, making information dissemination a challenge. The dissemination of extension services in Northern Ghana is one to four thousand farmers. ADVANCE II worked with mobile network operators to help them immediately point out spots for the provision of access to bandwidth and internet-enabled data services in areas where they were able to use the mobile phones. In order to ensure that women or smallholder farmers had access to the information, dissemination and distribution of handsets were undertaken as part of the COVID-19 response. Another initiative being undertaken in Ghana is called Isoko. It is a farmer's helpline, i.e., a call centre based on disseminating ag-based information in 14 local languages. A farmer can call a short code and get access to information on the field in real time.

  • Evaluation of outcomes

How to capture and measure the results of the interventions while activities were happening remotely was a major constraint. The volunteers engaged on the ground are based in the community and, in the context of COVID-19, they helped maintain activities with cooperatives, producer organisations and other young people who are participating in the training. But they cannot be forced to follow the organization’s system of measurement. This highlights the need for measurement systems to evolve.

  • Access to continuous power

Technical and logistical challenges occur when trying to organise remote meetings through Zoom with young people, women, and partner enterprises in the coffee sector, and power goes off.