Agricultural & Environmental Concerns: Role of Education

Yesterday, I spoke at a seminar on the subject theme organised by Knowledge Xchange in Chennai. This is a summary of what I said...

You must've heard several speakers on the subject since morning, and now you must be wondering what a corporate has to do with this topic. Let me deal with that first.

Purpose of education = Know How. Know How has two components. Firstly, Know What. Training typically focuses on Know What, while education is expected to build the other component of the capacity i.e. Know Why.

Purpose of Know How = Do How.

And, purpose of Do How is to actually "do" things that "deliver" the intended outcomes.

What are those outcomes, in relation to the Seminar theme?

1. Raise incomes for the farmers (Per Capita GDP of Indian farmers is just about a third of the rest of Indians)
2. Achieve Food & Nutrition Security for our all our people (a third of all our children are malnourished)
3. Do this in an environmentally sensitive manner (so that we leave a habitable world behind for our children and their children)

The theme of my talk is "What can Corporates do, to enable these outcomes?"

Basically, I have three messages to share:

1. For the Know How to be effective, the medium (of education) must be tailored to the context.
2. For the Know How to be translated to Do How, the education must be an integral part of a "meta-process"
3. To execute the idea of a meta-process in the real world on a large scale, you must leverage the power of innovative business models

To substantiate these arguments, I will walk you through the nature of challenges in Indian agriculture and the corresponding solution themes. And then illustrate those through the creative solutions successfully deployed by ITC on the ground.

1. The context of Indian agriculture and the farmer is quite complex, with multiple dimensions and each dimension with multiple degrees of challenges. The "media strategy" of "education", if I may call that, must be tailored to this context. Let me outline four of those dimensions, relevant to our theme today.

a. Any context must first be seen from the perspective of "outcome for the consumer", in our case the "farmer". Each of our famer is so very different from the other. Starting with variations in farm size, to the heterogeneity in agro-climatic conditions, to the far more individualised resource availability and risk taking ability. In other words, one message is not relevant to all farmers. That means, many messages need to be personalised, some can be mass-customised, while a few can be generic.

b. The second dimension of the context, is the "nature of message" itself. That varies according to the action that the message should trigger to achieve the objective. In some cases, it could be simple awareness about a market or a weather condition; while in another case, it may need to alter an existing farm practice such as seed rate or row spacing; in yet another case, it could create a conflict between short term effort or cost with long term benefit (such as investment in micro irrigation for soil conservation). Again, obviously, one tool doesn't trigger action in all cases. In one case it could be SMS on mobile phone, in the other it is an on-farm demo, and may be an audio-visual in another case.

c. The third dimension is "time" that enables action. In agriculture, as you will all know, most activities are very time sensitive. Therefore, a piece of information or a knowledge component has to be delivered absolutely on time. Especially when some of the actions are linked to random events like rain fall or pest attack.

d. The last dimension is "cost". Notwithstanding different levels of message and types of tools, obviously the cost can't be out of whack with the benefit being delivered or the risk being managed.

In ITC eChoupal, multiple media are used in a 360⁰ approach tailored to the need. For example, improved practice or a new input through the eChoupal website, followed by an on-farm demonstration through Choupal Pradarshan Khet for better conviction; then the adoption is facilitated through SMS reminders & telecalling to clarify suitability for specific farm condition, and obtaining feedback on practice / product performance through tele-helpline.

2. The second message is about translating all this Know How to Do How. The farmer may know what to do, but many times timely & affordable access to other inputs is a problem. Be it, credit or seed or some crop protection chemical. In the mind of the farmer, all of these elements are part of one process. Call it the "meta-process", because it is in the mind of the farmer. Deciding which crop to grow, managing it through the crop season, and then realising cash from the crop. But, these needs are served by different industry verticals such as agri extension, banks, seed companies and so on... Unlike in evolved markets, the delivery of these inputs is not synchronised with knowledge. Therefore, the action doesn't happen often. Consider an evolved market like buying a car in Chennai. You can acquire the knowledge about a car suitable to your needs through several magazines, a loan through a bank, actual vehicle from a dealer, insurance from an agent, and the service arrangement through a dealer seamlessly. But, for many farmers in rural India, such seamless process is still a dream. Fragmented farm sizes, dispersed villages, heterogeneous conditions compounded by weak infrastructure make synchronised delivery a challenge.

ITC eChoupal factors these challenges while orchestrating an ecosystem that delivers the desired end-to-end solution to farmers. It is achieved through a new digital, physical and human infrastructure organised in a hub & spoke configuration. Today some four million farmers access services through the ITC eChoupal network, offered by 160 organisations cutting across Government, Private and Social Sectors.

3. To roll out an infrastructure like eChoupal on ground, it costs a lot of money. How ITC designed a business model so that the cost of such a system is not a burden on the farmer, but recovered through innovative revenue models, is the third message.

For example, by eliminating non value adding costs of a village to mandi to our warehouse chain through a village to our warehouse chain by discovering price in the village is one such model.

In another model, we embed traceability along the chain (having sourced directly from the farmers) into our products, we deliver greater value to consumers and capture some of that value for ourselves and the farmers.

Yet another model is charging a toll on these 160 organisations for bringing them cost-effective access to the rural markets.

Allow me to repeat my three messages, before I close:

1. For the Know How to be effective, the medium (of education) must be tailored to the context.
2. For the Know How to be translated to Do How, the education must be an integral part of a "meta-process"
3. To execute the idea of a meta-process in the real world on a large scale, you must leverage the power of innovative business models

Thank you.

Rainbow Revolution in Indian Agriculture through innovative Agri Extension

Earlier today, I chaired a session on "Agri Business Extension" at the NAARM - IFPRI Workshop on "Redesigning Agricultural Extension in India". Since that was the last technical session of the Workshop, I had an opportunity to include "my take-aways" from the deliberations in all the four previous sessions in my opening remarks. My closing remarks were based on the presentations made in that session and the discussions that followed.

My Opening Remarks:

After the Green Revolution for Grains, White for Milk, Yellow for Oilseeds and Blue for Aquaculture, the phrase 'Rainbow Revolution' has been used in Indian agriculture to describe the growth of the horticulture sector. Today I would like to use that label to signify the revolution we can bring about through innovative agri extension services. For a reason... At the beginning of this workshop, we had a white canvas on which we could paint the future of agri extension. While reflecting on the deliberations of the earlier sessions in my own mind, I visualised seven distinct colours on such a painting, if we were to achieve the revolution we all want. Hence my choice of expression, "Rainbow Revolution"!

The first colour I visualised suggested that our focus must be on the farmer. Not just as a passive recipient of Knowledge, as in the traditional paradigm of 'Last Mile in the Technology Transfer", but as an active Co-creator of Knowledge in a multi-way knowledge exchange paradigm. This would ensure access to personalised solutions to the farmer, besides setting a reality oriented agenda for agri research itself...

The second colour depicted synchronised delivery of information, knowledge and inputs. This takes us beyond just transfer of knowledge to actually applying it on the ground. Inputs here mean credit, seeds, nutrients, crop protection chemicals, access to farm equipment, risk management solutions etc.

The third colour called for an alignment with the Government's flagship agriculture programme RKVY, to be able to create a force multiplier. This in turn means building the capacity for village and district level planning. At the same time, there is also a need for redesigning Government programmes to ensure that they don't unduly distort markets; because at the end of the day, we are relying on a market economy.

The fourth colour sought integration of agri extension into the full value chain of that produce. This approach will figure a way to create value by serving the changing needs of an evolving consumer. This also will consciously extend the role of agri extension into the vital post-harvest arena.

The fifth colour I had visualised demanded accountability of the system to all its stakeholders. An outcome oriented system instead of input or output as the only metrics. Today, by making the extension service free, we may have taken away the farmers' right to demand quality. Even a token payment will work wonders in ensuring accountability!

The sixth colour appealed that we be sensitive to the non-renewable natural resources. Agri Extension must promote Conservation Agriculture as much as possible. All of us know the three dimensions of agriculture vis-à-vis climate change (1) that agriculture is a part of the problem, causing climate change through Green House Gas emissions (methane from flooded paddy fields & ruminants like cows, nitrous oxide from the soils, CO2 from fossil fuels used in farm equipment etc), (2) that agriculture is also one of the most vulnerable sectors impacted by climate change (fall in productivity due to changing weather patterns), and (3) that agriculture can be an important part of the solution to climate change (through emission reductions, carbon sequestration, increasing soil organic matter etc)

Finally, the seventh colour stressed the need for a proactive agenda on gender issues in agri extension. Analyse gender roles in farming systems, enable gender sensitive agri extension methodologies...

To paint these seven colours, the speakers in this session have access to several new brushes.

For example, the leapfrogging developments in communication media, information processing and presentation. The medium must be relevant to the message and the context.

Power of partnerships is another good brush! Define complementary roles, varied resources of different partners, and the shared aspirations. Deal with the challenge of mistrust, as one of the earlier speakers pointed out.

Co-opting social capital resident in the communities for relationship building and group mobilisation.

Then, there are several innovations in aggregation methods, business models and conflict resolution approaches.

Our artistes, the business people that they are, have certain unique capabilities.

Consumer centrality is the essence of business. Understanding, designing and delivering consumer-relevant solutions is how businesses thrive.

These businesses are accountable through "choices". Consumers simply vote with their wallets and feet, when they have choices. Businesses become unsustainable if their solutions are redundant.

Governance processes and the management capacity of businesses need not be reminded to this audience.

Before I pass the floor on to our first speaker, let me also share the specific brush strokes I want to see from each of these artistes...

What's the role of agri-business in extension? What are the risks of businesses engaging in extension activity? What are the contours of a new regulation that can mitigate such risks?

Should the role of Government be restricted only to those areas businesses won't go? That is, poor farmers, backward regions, long term challenges, subsistence crops etc. How do we ensure that subsidies do not unduly distort the evolving agri services market?

My Closing Remarks:

So, we now have a colourful painting and a beautiful frame.

The painting portrays a "co-creation platform", if I can call it so. The platform provider could be Government, or a Co-operative or an Agri-Business. The platform operates globally, but enables seam-less local participation of multiple stakeholders who can simply plug & play. Such an orchestrated yet open platform has the ability to produce a rainbow at will...

The frame I see has the character of regulating by fostering competition, rather than by restricting. The subsidies are delivered through coupons, so farmers can exercise choice across multiple platforms!