US$100K grant

The project was one of five winners of the Inspire Challenge 2017 and was awarded US$100K at the inaugural annual convention of the CGIAR Platform Big Data in Agriculture, 19-22 September 2017.

Building a natural language processing classifier

The team built a natural language processing (NLP) classifier to accurately label incoming data. Farm.ink completed multiple workshops with the ILRI team to create a data labeling protocol. Using this protocol, hundreds of thousands of posts, comments and images generated by Kenyan farmers were analysed and labelled over 26,000 rows of data using a human-in-the-loop labeling method. They then built and trained a NLP-based classifier to label livestock posts (e.g. health issue, buying/selling).

This work brought to light various problems and concerns of livestock farmers in Kenya. For instance, the data revealed that 40 percent of the information shared relates to the buying and selling of cattle. Drilling down one level and looking into the  animal husbandry category, the most popular topic of discussion is feeds.

Developing analytical tools to turn the data into actionable information

The team built open-source analytical tools to turn the data into actionable information for dairy farmers and scientific researchers. Using the labelled data, the team created a dashboard tool to analyse data trends that the ILRI team and others can access. The tool, along with the labelled data, will be publicly accessible by the end of 2018, enabling others to build on the results.

Creating a dairy chatbot service

The team designed a simple and engaging way for farmers to receive information on their phones. Over the last year, the team has prototyped and tested multiple chatbot features for livestock farmers using the labelled data. They have combined actionable information from the social feed data with ILRI data to create targeted farmer alerts through the chatbot. These alerts include information on animal health issues, an analysis of local milk prices, and a report on local cows for sale.

Real results on the ground

The userbase of the Africa Farmers Club has reached 24,000 dairy farmers and is on track to exceed 40,000 by the end of 2018. A recent survey of 406 dairy chatbot users found that 92 percent reported having changed the way they farm based on information received through our services.

US$125K scale-up grant

The project was a runner up in the Inspire Challenge Scale Up 2018 and was awarded US$125K at the second annual convention of the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, 3-5 October 2018.

Understanding the key needs of digital farmers

Farm.ink worked in deep collaboration with partner IDEO.org to understand the key needs of digital farmers. In-depth interviews were conducted with 28 farmers, including those who had used Farm.ink services before and those who had not.

The key needs identified from conversations were:

• a better theoretical foundation for farming
• social safe space, as compared with current online forums
• more practical farming education

These user-generated themes were used to begin prototyping web platform concepts.

Prototyping approach

The team took a design-thinking approach to prototyping products that optimised for three factors:

• Desirability: Would users engage with the products initially and over time?
• Viability: What business model options are on the table? Can we simulate real payments?
• Feasibility: How can we move from lightweight prototypes to more functional ones that incorporate real data?

Concept generation

In collaboration with IDEO.org, the team reviewed the design research to develop 14 concepts, which were boiled down into four initial prototypes to test with farmers.

In early 2019, the team tested over ten prototypes, with over 30 user feedback sessions with farmers. Each hour-long session was recorded in detail, where possible, using user testing software Lookback.

Prototyping concepts

The team rapidly prototyped and tested these ideas, generating new working prototypes for farmers to see in seven day cycles. The photos below show some of the many tested prototypes.

Farmer impact journey

As the prototyping phase matured, the team built up a design specification for the public beta. The team has also tested a range of technology options (e.g. native apps vs. websites).

This initial phase helped the team better understand the potential farmer impact journey for a user interacting with the new platform. 

Now, the team will move into the build phase, turning the early prototypes into a public beta. The team aims to have this live with an early group of beta testers in June 2019.

Games and learning

Using a continuous customer development cycle (i.e. testing with users every month), the team continues to gain key learnings from users. With a focus on learning and social farming Q&A combined, we found that:

• Farmers ask better questions and respond with better answers when their initial experience of the platform is an educational one.
• Incorporating game mechanics hugely increased user time spent on the platform in unbroken periods of use.
• Front-loading the user experience with educational agricultural information provides incredible early impact data on what farmers know about key topics, and how quickly they learn (which is fast!).

User testing isn’t rocket science; the team looked out for when users gave a beaming smile while using the latest version.

Technology stack choices

The team decided the key pieces of the tech stack:

• React is a widely-used open source JavaScript framework for making single page web applications. It allows us to build complex applications that can run fast on client devices in lower bandwidth settings. Previously it has been a challenge to get native apps on farmers’ phones, but this technology allows the team to create app-like experiences through an easily-available web link.
• Progressive web apps offer a range of functions such as push notifications and offline modes to web app technology.
• M-PESA allows the team to integrate a payment channel for farmers to easily send and receive funds on the platform.

Fall Armyworm course

In the scale-up phase, Farm.Ink’s aims to work with new content areas. Fall Armyworm is currently causing widespread damage to maize crops across Africa, so the pest has been a new area of focus for the team.

The team won the FAW Tech Prize challenge to build digital tools for farmers to manage this critical pest.

We translated Fall Armyworm content produced by Feed the Future and CIMMYT into a format that proved to be highly engaging with our users and led to stimulating conversation among users. These types of conversations create precisely the kind of social discussion data that can be analyzed to understand broader trends and insights.

API prototyping

The team have started prototyping an API that allows partners to rapidly deliver information to a farming audience. Key impact data about the uptake and learning outcomes among farmer users is tracked.

The team aims to make this a simple but effective solution for partners. It can have a positive and measurable impact on smartphone-owning farmers who are thirsty to learn!

Stay tuned for more updates!