Brewing Connectivity: Mobile technology enables Haitian sorghum farmers to meet Heineken’s quota

In late 2011 when Heineken International bought over Haiti’s national brewery, Brasserie Nationale d’Haïti (BRANA S.A.), local producers and consumers were unsure as to how the change in leadership would affect them. One of the terms was that Heineken would purchase 60% of its ingredients locally, replacing imported malted barley with local sorghum. This created an outstanding yet daunting prospect for Haitian sorghum farmers, as most grew sorghum on small, individual plots and were not equipped to meet the large demands of the international brewing giant.

The creation of SMASH, the Smallholder Alliance for Sorghum in Haiti, rendered tackling this challenge possible. SMASH is a public-private partnership between USAID, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the national Haitian brewery BRANA, S.A. In collaboration with Dimagi, a social enterprise that designs mobile technology for use in low-resource settings, SMASH implemented a mobile application program for sorghum farmers and agricultural extension agents. The application helps extension agents stay in contact with farmers, monitor crop quality, and respond to challenges such as pests and destructive weather. The application also tracks sorghum from the field all the way to the grain storage center in Port-au-Prince, which had initially been seen as one of the major obstacles in verifying and ensuring that the quota would be met. After the introduction of the application, extension agents reported that they experienced a 90% decrease in the time they spent filling out data collection forms, allowing them to spend more time with farmers.

SMASH and its mobile technology program have fostered a sustainable arrangement in which sorghum farmers gained a reliable customer, Heineken followed through on its promise to source local ingredients, and consumers enjoy access to a quality product (in this case, the non-alcoholic nutritional beverage Malta-H). The data collected and generated by the application informs future business decisions for all parties involved and aids in monitoring of both extension and production activities. The next goal on the horizon for SMASH is to shift to a paper-free purchasing process for farmers, which should enhance the speed and verifiability of transactions. SMASH serves as a positive example of the ways in which public and private institutions, smallholder farmers, agricultural extension, and technology developers can coalesce to improve both products and livelihoods in the Caribbean.

Source:

https://www.rti.org/impact/smallholder-alliance-sorghum-haiti-smash

New Research- Do Social Media Support 'Social' Change?

In a recent article published in the peer reviewed proceedings of the Canadian Communication Association Dr. Ataharul Chowdhury and Dr. Helen Hambly-Odame explore the topics of social media and social change. By critically analyzing the change processes in agriculture and rural development they found that having access to new media does not necessarily actively encourage social and collective change.

Find the article here.

Social Media Connects Rural Women in Australia

In this brief but telling article from Australia the new head of Australian Women in Agriculture uses the ease of connection with social media to stay in touch with other members. These new connections are hoped to foster more conversations across expansive geographies to provide support for women in rural areas.

Finland and Vodacom Tanzania Partner to Help Farmers

Allowing farmers to be able to access information through mobile phone use has become more important in a globalized economy. In Tanzinia the Finnish government, Finnish company Sibesonke, and mobile service provider Vodacom Tanzania have come together to help farmers access information through the use of their mobile phones. The Head of Brand and Communication at Vodacom Tanzania, Kelvin Twissa, explained that his company is always trying to find new ways to benefit its customers while Sibesonke CEO Uwe Schwarz described the partnership as a major step towards implementing their life-improving technology using social media and mobile phones in developing countries.Sibesonke is a spin-off of Nokia and created technology that allows interactive social networks to be used with inexpensive phones.

Read the full article here.

Radio and Emerging ICTs

In a recent post by Dr Helen Hambly Odame on the blog Mobilizing Knowledge for Sustainable Agriculture she discusses the established strengths of traditional broadcast radio and the potential to add value to this medium using social media networks and platforms.

Follow the link to read her post: Developing the Concept and Practice of Radio+.

Facebook is Getting the Conversation Going

Image source: http://goo.gl/2BDOVC

Facebook has recently announced that it will begin allowing its users to connect to broader conversations or trending topics using the hashtag, already in popular use on other social media platforms. An article in TechCrunch states that the hashtag on Facebook will involve capabilities such as “searching for hashtags, clicking on hashtags that come from other services, and writing posts directly from the hashtag feed”.

With the new hashtag feature introduced on Facebook its users may be able to use the social media site more like Twitter is used. On Twitter, using hashtags, you have the ability to begin conversations or even include yourself in conversations on topics far beyond your conventional social group. The result of this is, at the users discretion, they have a voice in either broad topics or niche topics where without the hashtag they would not have this option so easily available to them.

"Ontarian Agri-food and Rural Development Stakeholders Want to See Social Media as a Communication Strategy":

Findings of a Recent Study Conducted by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

It seems as though the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) is increasingly interested in understanding the social media use of stakeholders in the agriculture and rural sector; a curiosity that is shared by the researchers of the ongoing study presented on this blog. OMAFRA recently conducted an online survey, created by a leading Canadian marketing research corporation Ipsos Reid, regarding the web browsing and social media usages and attitudes of various actors in the agriculture sector. The online survey, hosted on the OMAFRA website between February 6 and March 5, 2012, was completed by a total of 439 individuals, many of whom identified as farmers, farm employees, agri-students, agri-business personnel, and members of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.  

The survey reveals an increasing trend of social media use as a communication strategy by the agri-food and rural development professionals in Ontario.  84% of the participants reported using social media in the past year and 73% of the participants found the social networking sites as important to their work. Twitter was the most commonly used social media application for agriculture-related purposes, such as the sharing and capturing of knowledge and information, professional networking and marketing. Following Twitter was YouTube, blogs, and agriculture-specific online social networks. Facebook was one of the least-used applications for agriculture-related purposes, but the most used for personal networking amongst the survey respondents. There is a potential scope for using these tools for business and entrepreneurship development as indicated by 87% of social media users that they would more likely to buy/use specific agri-product/service after a positive review on social media.    

The OMAFRA-supported survey also shed light on gaps in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the agriculture sector. For instance, 12 percent of respondents identified the lack of agriculture-specific “apps” as a significant drawback to their technology-use. The most significant drawback identified by the participants was the lack of social media use by governmental bodies, including the agriculture sector. With 89 percent of survey respondents in compliance, the report suggests that OMAFRA and service agencies should develop a policy to adopt ‘social media’ as a communication strategy.

The survey provides first-hand information about existing social media practices and depicts a very positive interest about social media by agri-food stakeholders. However, the study has not touched upon in-depth understanding of social media practices such as specific goals, benefits and challenges for networking, relationship building and learning by multiple stakeholders.  The findings urge to conduct in-depth analysis on these issues; a task that the ongoing study on agricultural innovation systems and social media applications by Dr. Chowdhury and Dr. Hambly Odame undertakes.