1. Catholic Relief Services Farmbook
Name: Shaun Ferris, Suzanne Andrews, Vipin Gupta, Vijay Singh, Kevin Raymond
Company size : CRS is working in nearly 100 countries
Years of service: since 1943 years
Non profit, employees and major local partner network

2. Challenge in our enterprise work
No data on farmer investment levels
No costs of production data
No profit information
No standardized market training
No tools – on/ offline
No business advice deployment process

3. Farmbook Capabilities
The Farmbook application has six basic functions,
Registers people into farmer groups,
Enables farmers to run profitability analyses in the field,
Enables farmer groups to develop a business plans,
Supports crop production scheduling
Allows field agents to record farm visits, training given and assets transferred,
The process will also supports mapping for farmer groups.

4. Farmbook toolkit within a project
Distance learning / training materials
Farmer registration
Business planning
Profitability analysis
Product Sales
Track and Map
Project set up
Baseline / impact
How to match the right delivery “channel” to get the right information to the right people?
How to time for greatest impact?
Digitizing so much information
Localizing
Scaling: getting beyond “success story”
Using or adapting available platforms, applications, service providers
Leveraging governments’ FES
Dimagi
Track and Map

5. Farmbook is deployed with marketing E-learning process

6. Monitoring Distance Learning
The Agilix platform allows us to enroll “field agents” as students and then monitor their process. For large projects this provides a way to train, monitor and support. Given the high rates of turnover in staffing, we are able to retrain new staff. Staff and community based workers can use the system.
This product works in the online and off line modes.

7. Registration
To begin, you will get to know the Mshika farmer group and register its members.
Click here to start!

8. Register beneficiaries
Unique identifier Number

9. Register Farmer Groups
Once you have registered all members of a farmer group into their households, you need to register farmers as a farmer group.
Click here to start!

10. Enter Farmer information
After registering your farmer group, enter the total land holdings for each registered farmer.

11. Create a Business Plan
Click here to start!

12. Business Model Canvas
Before getting started, Agnes sat down with the farmers to explain the concept of a business plan. She shared an example Business Model Canvas to demonstrate how each part of the business plan fits together. Visualizing the parts of a business plan helped the farmers to understand how a business plan is built from basic parts.

13. Write the Plan with farmers

14. Profit analysis with farmers
Click here to start!

15. Profitability Assessment with farmers

16. Farmer Group Example Data Set

17. Recording Sales

18. Local Reports
Review data on the local database from the reports section
Click here to start!

19. Click here to get Farmer Reports
View Local Reports
Click here to get Farmer Reports

20. Synchronizing Information
When you complete beneficiary registration, it is now time to sync your first set of data. All information captured on the Farmbook Client (i.e. netbook) must be uploaded to Farmbook Central in order for the information to be aggregated so that Super Users and other CRS stakeholders can view the information collected.
Click here to start!

21. Synchronize Information
Data synching should be done every time an FA has internet access after a new set of data is entered.
Click here to change the language
Click here to synchronize the data with Farmbook Central

22. Accessing data on Farmbook Central
Review data from all field agents through Farmbook Central:

23. View Reports in Farmbook Central
When the field agents have synchronized their data to the Farmbook central database, you will be able to check the data here.
Click here to start!

24. Support Model email local Super User and your local IT Staff.
Send a ticket to the CRS Helpdesk at
In your helpdesk outline problem and wait to be contacted by your support staff.

25. Where is Farmbook being deployed
Within CRS
Zimbabwe
Zambia
Madagascar
Malawi
Next steps
Tanzania
Philippines
India
External to CRS
Serbia USDA Min of Ag
Next steps
Bangladesh - BIID
Kenya - Min of Ag

26. Business Model Revenue: Non profit beta version being tested
Farmbook training – Free registration to pilot test
Farmbook production = $5 per user / year
Establishment costs: Depends on the scale of deployment
Product sustainability: based on demand from…..
internal market, CRS project portfolio
partner market,
external market
Long term business model: SaaS through private company

27. Data management and Jobs
Logs the farmers engaged
Provides a wealth ranking
Development of business plans for farmers
Data on investments and profits of crops
Data over products, space and time.
New employment opportunities
Link to Private sector Service Providers

28. Working with you! Visit the Website.. www.farm-book.biz
Send us an
Sign up for an account……
Get started… on Farmbook Training
Get support for Farmbook Production /

29. Thank you
Questions…

30. Current management and information structures
Project manager
Nutrition
Gender
Finance, productivity, marketing
Theme managers
CRS Project
Field staff
Project staff
Project staff
Project staff
Project staff
Project staff
Partner Staff
Partner Staff
Partner Staff
Partner Staff
Partner Staff
Partner Staff
Partner Staff
Partner Staff
Local
Partners
Field
Extension
Agents
200 +
This slide, shows a typical project structure: Much of the information gathering and sharing in these structures is currently paper based, which makes the system slow, subject to errors and difficult to manage the data in a timely manner.
Current systems also do not support field agent level training, or tools that will help field agents to gather the rich level of data that we now want to know about our farming clients.
CRS is therefore developing systems to put tools in the hands of the field agents to allow them to work more effectively as local business service providers. At this time, most field agents have a phone. We can use simple tools such as Frontline SMS to link all of our field agents into a basic communication network. We now want to move to a situation where every field agent has a mobile device that will allow them to share a richer information set. The target is not a train the trainer approach, it is a direct field agent package.
Farmer Groups
5000 +

31. Using ICT technologies, we are NOT changing the basic information system, we are replacing existing labour intensive data processes with digital forms. This approach allows us to radically change the structure of the data management process. Once the data is collected, it goes directly to a database, where it is then available to all members at once. Each person in the system will have a different view of this data, depending on their needs.