Posts Tagged ‘Farming’

Community Knowledge Worker Pilot Report and Program Launch

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

In early 2009, Grameen Foundation went to Uganda with the idea of creating a fluid and effective two way communication channel between rural farmers

CKWs in training

CKWs in training

and the world of agricultural experts, development agencies, traders and commercial players. Through this loop, rural small holder farmers would be given livelihood saving agricultural information generated by the experts and the big  players would keep informed on conditions on the farm from adoption of best practices to available produce for sale. (more…)

A Day in The Life of a (Female) Community Knowledge Worker

Friday, November 6th, 2009

CKW's in training

Right now we’re in a planning phase—which ultimately means we’re wrestling with the “big” challenges that become even more significant at scale.  We’re building partnerships to begin recruiting Community Knowledge Workers (CKWs) in early 2010 and that has me thinking about one of those challenges: how do we ensure that female farmers have an equal opportunity to participate as CKWs and that they have the same access to services offered through the CKW channel?

In the pilot we learned that women do most of the manual labor in farming in Uganda and will often be the decision makers when it comes to adopting new agronomic techniques.  Our observations also show that they’re less likely to own their own phones and to approach a male CKW.  During the pilot, 33% of CKWs were women, but if we really want to reach female farmers we will need to recruit equal women and men to participate in the program and ensure that both enjoy the same benefits.  So how do we do it? (more…)

Agriculture and Mobile Phones Come Together With Our Community Knowledge Worker Project in Uganda

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

CKW Joseph Nashimolo

Last week in Uganda I was fortunate to attend a meeting in Busano subcounty, Mbale district, with some of the Community Knowledge Workers  (CKWs) – local farmer leaders empowered with mobile applications to improve the livelihoods of their communities by distributing and collecting relevant information about agriculture – and their clients, the smallholder farmers we all seek to benefit.  There was a lively discussion of the pros and cons of a variety of information services we have been testing nearby.  One farmer, Elias Mabala, then stood up and spoke about how his income improved more than 100% last harvest by virtue of having greater access to market information through the CKW assigned to serve the information needs arising in his village.  Stories like that explain why we come to work each day. (more…)