RiceAdvice Dissemination Final Report

RiceAdvice Dissemination Final Report by: Obosi Philip

CARI and Africa Rice Partnership:

• The Competitive African Rice Initiative (CARI) helps smallholder rice

farmers to increase their production and improve their income. This is

achieved via provision of technical support and advisory.

• CARI partnered with Africa Rice for the dissemination of RiceAdvice

technology to farmers under the CARI project.

Rice Advice was validated in dry season 2016

in four states:

• Kogi

• Niger

• Jigawa

• Kebbi

• In may 2016, the MOU was extended till early 2017 for

the dissemination of the technology to smallholder farmers in four

states. The dissemination commenced in June 2016 at the start of the

wet season.

Trainings

Trainings were held in four states between May and June, 2016. The following

number of extension agents (service providers) were trained in each state and

given a target of 100 farmers each:

State Service Providers Target Number of Farmers

Kogi 10 1000

Niger 24 2400

Jigawa 38 3800

Kebbi 25 2500

Total 97 9700

Class training of service providers

Field Demonstration to service providers

Farmers Interviewed

Service Providers in each state were given targets of 100 farmers each. Below is the number of

farmers interviewed by service providers in each state and data that has been synchronized.

State Service Providers Target Farmers

Interviewed

Data

Synchronized

Kogi 10 1000 1000 969

Niger 24 2400 2400 2155

Jigawa 38 3800 3182 3182

Kebbi 25 2500 2454 2454

Total 97 9700 9036 8760

Gender Analysis of Farmers Interviewed

State Male Female Total

Kogi 515 485 1000

Niger 2125 275 2400

Jigawa 3002 180 3182

Kebbi 2376 78 2454

Total 8018 1018 9036

Farmers

Female

Male

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

kogi niger jigawa kebbi

GENDER ANALYSIS OF FARMERS INTERVIEWED

male

female

Gender Analysis of Farmers Interviewed

Male = 88.7%

Female = 11.3%

Farmers Interviewed

Monitoring

RiceAdvice monitoring visit was conducted twice; at flowering and at harvest. Few

farmers were randomly selected in each state for the monitoring visit and were

asked several questions about the RiceAdvice dissemination and its effectiveness.

The objectives of the exercise are as follows:

To assess the effectiveness of the RiceAdvice in the field and the overall impact on

yield and income.

To know the views and perception of the farmers about RiceAdvice

Monitoring

Observation:

The effectiveness of RiceAdvice and the improvement in yield was very obvious on the

fields. Majority of the farmers that used RiceAdvice were seen to be harvesting about

double quantity compared to the yield in the previous season due to RiceAdvice.

Similarly, they all recorded reasonable decrease in quantity of fertilizer used.

All the farmers were very happy with the massive improvement in output and income

that RiceAdvice has brought to them and they were all eager to receive the advice in

next production season and also willing to increase their land size so as to be able to

take full advantage of the Advice.

Monitoring

Below is a picture of a field belonging to a farmer who accepted RiceAdvice to be tested on

a part of his field and employed his own local method on the remaining part of his field.

A BA: RiceAdvice Field B: Farmer controlled Field

Monitoring

Field Day

A field day was organized on Wednesday 2nd of November, 2016 in Birnin-Kebbi; this

was an event in which farmers that have used RiceAdvice innovation and service

providers were brought to demonstrate and enlighten the public of the benefit of

RiceAdvice. In attendance were Kebbi State Commissioner for Agriculture, Permanent

Secretary Min. of Agric, P.M. KARDA, Chairman RIFAN, Chairman Birnin-Kebbi LGA,

Emirate Council Birnin-Kebbi, Kebbi State T.V., Equity Radio, Leadership newspaper

and NTA Kebbi.

Field Day

Data Collection and Tablet Retrieval

Almost all data has been collected and sent by ODK. All the tablet has been

collected from the service providers.

Success Stories

• Mr Murtala Aliyu (Male - Jega, Birnin Kebbi): Before I use to apply 4 bags

of fertilizer and I get 6 bags yield. But now with RiceAdvice, I applied 2bags

of fertilizer and I harvested 18 bags yield on the same 0.2ha farm.

• Mr. Abdullahi Mahari (Jigawa): After seeing the increase in yield in my farm

due to RiceAdvice, I am willing to pay 20,000 Naira for this service because it

is profitable to me.

• Mr. Aguda (Male - Hadejia, Jigawa): My neighbors have been asking me how

come I am having more than double quantity of their yield when we both

have the same size of land and planted the same time.

• Mrs Saha Musa (Female - Hadejia, Jigawa): Before I use to have difficulty in

buying fuel to irrigate in dry season but with the increase yield that

RiceAdvice has brought to me, I can now afford fuel and will produce all year

round.

Story by: Mr. Ahmed Muhammad

Jega Local Governement Area, Kebbi State, Nigeria.

Farm Size: 0.3 hectares

At the beginning of the season in July, my extension agent provided advisory service

to me using RiceAdvice. RiceAdvice provided fertilizer recommendations in

quantity, time of application and type of fertilizer to apply. My extension agent has

been trained on using this application; he collected information from me on fertilizer

applications in previous seasons, farm size and yield. With this information, the

application provided recommendation for this season. This recommendation

reduced the quantity of fertilizer I use to apply and gave me a wide increase in yield.

This is my testimony:

Key Message:

• Reduced fertilizer used by half of the normal quantity

• Applied fertilizer timely to maximize use by the rice plant

• Yield increase by 66%

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

WithoutRiceAdvice

With RiceAdvice

KG Rice Advice

Quantity offertilizer

Yield

Success Stories

Constraints

• Flooding in some parts of some of the states which affected field level and

destroyed crops

• Theft: A service provider was attacked by thieves. They made away with the

tablet and his personal belongings. Proof of this was provided by the

service provider.

• Two tablet developed a problem, one damaged screen and the other

condemned battery. Both will be repaired so that the data can be sent and

synchronized.

Way Forward

• Training of CARI trainers in Kano State.

• Collaboration with Jigawa State Government to train the state extension agents to

disseminate RiceAdvice to rural farmers.

• Convincing ADPs in the states to further implement on their own small scale

without waiting for external supports.

• Demo Plots for RiceAdvice incorporated with complete CARI Good Agronomic

Practices

• Reduce the amount of data collected, only minimum data required i.e. last form 1

and last form 4.

• Need to reach out to more female farmers.

• Need for more effective coordination.

• Inclusion of RiceAdvice in GAP training material

Way Forward

• Establish business model for RiceAdvice service delivery i.e. a business model

developed with the knowledge of farmers willingness to pay for the service and the

economic implicatiions. Such a model can be used by ADPs, private service

providers like Agricultural Graduates Association of Nigeria AGAN, Tractor Owners

Hiring facilities of Nigeria TOHFAN, Fertilizer development companies like OCP and

Indorama, millers and government institutes like National Agricultural and

Research Liaison Services NAERLS. Such a model can will help provide a fore-

knowledge of the incentives in disseminating the Advice by these service

providers.

• Adaptation of RiceAdvice to more common and affordable devices like potable

smart phones.

• Integration of RiceAdvice with other ICT tools like weather forecast, Plantix

(disease recognition capabilities)

THANK YOU!!!

Competitive African Rice Initiative in collaboration with AfricaRice is

Increasing competitiveness of domestic rice production in sub-Saharan Africa

using RiceAdvice.

RiceAdvice Dissemination Final Report

Government & Nonprofit

Transcript of RiceAdvice Dissemination Final Report