ICT in Agriculture at the World Bank CRS ICT4D 4th Annual Conference March 27th-March 29th, 2012 Cory Belden

Why are we here? ICT Context Agricultural Context Cost-effectiveness & Centrality of agriculture to development New and old challenges facing agriculture Increased private sector involvement Agricultural Context The rise of rural connectivity Enormous diversity of applications and software ICT Context Cost-effectiveness & efficiency “Agribusiness is the mining sector 20 years ago” – Juergen Voegele, private sector expansion Firstly, the rise of rural connectivity as well as affordability of applications has made ICT relevant to poor smallholder farmers, particularly mobile phones. This has created enormous amount of diversity in implementation as well as a great deal of participation from communities, governments, NGOs, the private sector, and others. We started the project aware of two main points. Firstly, that agriculture is critical to poverty reduction, food security, and economic growth but also facing severe and new challenges such as climate change, population growth, changes in global markets, and price volatility. Finally, while we saw the potential in ICT to transform agriculture, we also observed that impacts, research and lessons learned on the sector is anecdotal and not cohesive. So the sourcebook aimed to change this. ---ICTs hold great promise for transforming agriculture, but research and lessons learned are scattered and mostly anecdotal--- www.ICTinAgriculture.org

ICT in Agriculture e-Sourcebook Connecting Smallholders to Knowledge, Networks, & Institutions OVERVIEW www.ICTinagriculture.org www.ICTinAgriculture.org

Expanding Our Knowledge THE SOURCEBOOK IS: Two-year long effort to synthesize and develop reliable information about the potential of ICTs in agriculture and experiences Effort to spark enthusiasm about promising applications and tools Contributions from 50+ experts (internal and external) Over 200 examples from six regions (including OECD countries) Easy to use, modular structure—agricultural sub-sectors Challenges, key enablers, lessons learned... THE SOURCEBOOK IS NOT: A cookbook! An academic paper! A policy report! www.ICTinAgriculture.org

Module Topics Markets & Value Chains Cross-Cutting Themes Access & Affordability Agricultural Marketing The Role of Mobiles Supply Chain Inclusion Gender Equality Risk Management Enhancing Productivity Food Safety & Traceability Increasing Productivity Public Service Provision Agricultural Innovation Systems Governance & Participation Financial Services Land Administration Farmer Organizations Forest Governance www.ICTinAgriculture.org

Apps, software, projects, and more apps! Ones you’ve heard of… Ones perhaps you haven’t… Reuters Market Light Nokia Life Tools Digital Green Ushahidi Kencall Kilimo Salama mKrishi AgriManagr Grameen CKW Indiagriline Shellcatch Agropedia TIPCEE SIBWA KAINet TECA Txteagle KAPC (carbon) M-climate, Turkey RFID, Botswana Biometrics L3F (India) SOUNONG ZNFU SMS Nit. Sensors And many more! MTZL e-Choupal Esoko ACDI/VOCA DrumNet Farm Radio M-PESA IFFCO IKSL www.ICTinAgriculture.org

So here is a screen shot of the website– go over and explain or show on Internet www.ICTinAgriculture.org

How does the World Bank fit into the global movement on ICT? www.ICTinAgriculture.org

AND! Over-focus on basic ICT tools (e.g. computers for admin) ICT Component in 1,300 out of 1,700 projects 4 projects 94 projects 24 projects 77 projects 144 projects 96 projects 35 projects 75 projects 83 projects 258 projects 140 projects 17 projects 106 projects Financial Management, Procurement Energy and Mining Social Development Water Transport Urban Development Environment Social Protection Health, Nutrition and Population Financial, Private Sector Development Agriculture and Rural Development Education Economic Policy, Poverty Reduction Public Sector Governance 100% 56.3% 58.5% 58.8% 64.9% 70.1% 71.4% 72.1% 78.3% 81.4% 85.9% 89.5% 98.1% BUT! 40% of projects do not achieve their objectives AND! Over-focus on basic ICT tools (e.g. computers for admin) www.ICTinAgriculture.org

What’s next at the World Bank? Module on operational challenges (the ‘how’) Collaboration between ICT and ARD Sector Units (critical!) Building a roster of experts/community of practice (public & private) Trainings and workshops, conferences (like this one!) Focus on e-extension and M&E Continued updates on the website (following the evolution) e-forums with FAO & e-agriculture community (sharing) Additional analytical work (what works and what doesn’t and why) Task force on ICT in Agriculture www.ICTinAgriculture.org

e-Forums, two down with more to come! PURPOSE: dissemination, learning, operations, networking With who? FAO, e-agriculture community, companies, other agencies First e-forum: Strengthening Agricultural Marketing (Module 9), Dec 2011 Second e-forum: ICT Innovation for Green Growth (Modules 11 and 5), March 2012 1,000+ views and 100 posts Summaries posted after forums Subject matter experts include participants from both World Bank and other agencies. Shaun Ferris from CRS, Bruce Campbell from CGIAR, and reps from companies like Reuters Market Light. So please participate in the next one! (which should be happening around the end of May/beg of June). www.ICTinAgriculture.org

Discussion: Tough Decisions and Change Mgmt Tapping new ways of doing development work Supporting marketing with donor funds? Private “crowding in”– challenges & opportunities (getting past the pilot stage) Collaboration btn IT and sector expertise (design & other stages) Do we need to do some priority-setting? Analytics vs. trainings and creation Rural infrastructure vs. app development Client focus– is it really there? Knowledge sharing and learning What expertise does it take to create effective solutions and how can we build them strategically in our agencies/NGOs? Supporting “marketing”-- need funds for marketing purposes (eg creating demand/awareness), which donors have previously been hesitant to provide. Another problem is that the loans are not small enough for these purposes or for innovation competition purposes. Private crowding in”– fee for service doesn’t usually work, this is why the government needs to be involved to provide services to poor. However, new models like ‘embedded services’ (provides a service for no charge, but it does so to generate demand or strengthen customer loyalty to the provider’s main, chargeable product or service) and ‘freemium’ models (where the basic service is free and add-ons are additional money, like RML) are showing promise. Need to figure out better how the private and public sector can work together. Collaboration– new ICT Knowledge Platform in the ICT Sector Unit for consulting services, aiming to target and support different sectors in the Bank. Demand-side approach www.ICTinAgriculture.org

Resources www.ICTinAgriculture.org ICT in Agriculture Sourcebook (2011) and website www.ictinagriculture.org Agriculture Innovation Systems Investment Sourcebook (2012) www.worldbank/ard/ais What the website offers: http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/clnFYFayZ m-ARD Report (ICT Sector Unit & Intel, 2012) http://bit.ly/GR9qrB e-Agriculture & FAO online community (e-forums) www.e-agriculture.org e-Transform Agriculture Report http://www.etransformafrica.org/sector/agriculture www.ICTinAgriculture.org