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MAINTAINING AGRI-EXTENSION IN TIMES OF COVID-19 AND BEYOND

By Stephanie Pownall

Evidently, Covid-19 has had a crippling effect on the overall global economy impacting several sectors in both developed and developing economies. In developing economies,the pandemic has contributed to a large scale cash crunch in the region’s agriculture sector leading to overstressing food supply chains with bottlenecks in farm labour, processing, transport and logistics, as well as momentous shifts in demand. The OECD supports the argument of Covid-19 posing a threat on food security to the poorest countries whose agricultural systems are more labor intensive. While the impacts of Covid-19 still unfold,  there is a need for a more resilient information system to support farmers to ensure farm productivity, incomes and food security. 

Factually, and as supported by IFPRI, the agricultural extension (agri-extension) services play a crucial role in boosting agricultural productivity, increasing food security, improving rural livelihoods and promoting agriculture as an engine of pro-poor economic growth. In Sub saharan Africa, as alluded to by Mercy Corps AFA, the agri-extension services are largely  underfunded and limited in scope with one extension officer per two thousand farmers, challenging the conventional extension models to its very core. In normal scenarios as well, agri- extension faces challenges in navigating large distances, poor infrastructure and low rural population density implying high costs and low per unit returns and Covid-19 has only aggravated this issue.  

Now more than ever, farmers are in need of support and relevant information on good agricultural practices, inputs and markets to enable them to sustain and develop resilient agricultural practices to ensure food security. This situation is challenging the agricultural community to explore alternatives that not only provide a quick fix to issues amplified by Covid-19 but also provide a long term supplement or alternative to the conventional in-person  agriculture extension models. This is where digital models like Arifu can come in and provide a last mile personalised low cost and highly scalable interactive tool.

Mobile technology advancements are creating opportunities for agri-stakeholders to continue agri extension remotely during Covid-19 while also providing insights on feasibility of exploring digital extension as a way forward. Some of the reasons why businesses are gravitating towards digital transformation include; 1) digital extension as low cost and highly scalable tool with a potential to reach thousands of smallholder farmers with as low as 3$ per farmer as an annual cost, 2) it enables continuation and follow through learning where farmers can go back to the significant and relevant points of learning for action and, 3) facilitates businesses critical data analytics that is imperative for developing strategies of service delivery. 

Arifu’s innovative platform enables small holder farmers to learn about good agricultural practices, agriculture inputs offered by Arifu’s partners, access to finance and other relevant information while also providing agri businesses a platform to capture insights directly from the smallholder farmers via rich data analytics,  surveys and other tools  for customizing service delivery. Arifu’s platform is compatible with both, the smart phones and feature phones overcoming the digital divide in the region. Using channels like SMS and smartphone applications like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram, Arifu is able to provide cutting edge opportunities to both learners and partners. Arifu’s success lies largely in the way it develops and packages digital content. Arifu uses design thinking principles to generate and disseminate information. The design process focuses on the partners’ business needs and provides a solution that resonates best with its learners creating the desired behavior change and impact. The content is contextualized using text and rich media for application which goes through a series of in-person testing and quality control. Arifu also provides partners the ability to digitise content themselves through using Arifu’s expertise. To reinforce the impact, 60 decibels and Arifu ran a study on farmers undergoing training using Arifu’s platform earlier in 2020. This study was conducted on KCB’s Mobigrow platform farmers to understand whether the farmers felt the content available on the Arifu platform was useful to them and how it impacted their livelihoods and some of the main findings of the study enumerate the following:

  • 57% farmers saw an improvement in income
  • 47% farmers saw an improvement in production
  • 35% farmers perceived improved quality of life
  • 26% farmers perceived an increase in the money earned due to an increase in the volume sold

In Kenya, agriculture contributes to 57% of employment; very similar to other developing countries, and supporting farmers and businesses to interact directly during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond is one of Arifu’s major priorities. Arifu and similar solutions enable companies to sustain and improve farm livelihoods by making relevant information on good agricultural practices and entrepreneurial skills to help farmers increase their incomes for better financial security. If you’d like to get in touch with us and learn more about Arifu’s value proposition, please email us at pownall@arifu.com or sood@arifu.com.

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Articles Press

Business Daily Article: When essential farming skills are just an SMS away

Arifu CEO Craig Heintzman discusses Arifu’s impact on farmers in article published by Kenya’s Nation Media Group – Business Daily

To read this article click here

 

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Articles Partnerships

How to Maintain a Healthy Portfolio during Covid-19: Invest in your Customers

It has been a difficult year for most of us financially. The covid-19 pandemic has affected many businesses and has left many people furloughed, 30% or more reductions in pay or in some cases unpaid leave. The International Labour Organization, in a recent article, estimates that about 25 million people globally could become unemployed with the loss of income as high as USD 3.4 trillion globally. In Kenya alone, the labour ministry estimates a loss of 342,300 jobs since April with 133,657 of those being formal jobs and about half a  million employees  being sent on unpaid leave. 

Financial institutions are not immune to the adverse effects of this pandemic. Some of the pandemic aggravated challenges include:

  • low loan repayment rates from customers and reduced agent/customer relation due to mobility restrictions
  • policy changes leading to  reduced interest rates
  • restricted movement of field staff and agents 

Given these challenges, financial institutions are now pushed to rethink their strategies and find remote solutions using technology to overcome the adverse effects of business disruptions caused by Covid-19. To maintain a healthy loan portfolio, the financial service industry should consider supporting the financial wellbeing of their customers to reach a win-win. At Arifu, we have seen great success and ROI for our partners that are investing in building customer financial capacity.

A case in point is Arifu’s partnership with Vodacom in Tanzania, where MPawa users were provided with interactive mobile training via SMS on topics such as savings, loans and product knowledge. A study conducted by CGAP found that customers that accessed at least 10 messages in the Arifu training had:

  • 8x increase in savings deposits
  • 20% increase in average loan size
  • And 9 day sooner first payment of loans

To read more about this project, click here

Financial institutions can derive value from investing in the upskilling of their customers on topics such as adopting better financial management practices, diversifying their incomes and finding innovative ways to combat the economic disruptions caused by the pandemic at an individual and household level. The medium and long term outcome of promoting better financial management practices is seeing an increase in customer repayment rates and a healthier bottom line.

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Articles Life At Arifu

An update from our CCO

MANDEEP BIRDI

Greetings readers.

As the new and first CCO of Arifu, I take immense pleasure in announcing the launch of our Arifu Whatsapp channel, which launched in early August and is continuously being updated with more and more content in collaboration with some of our partners.

Social media messaging accounted for around 40% of user activity among a vast sample base of 15,000 tracked apps and three different WhatsApp mod versions were among the ten most used messaging apps according to analysis based on anonymously logged smartphone activity tracked by Caribou Data’s research app on users’ phones, with their permission.

As of July 2020, WhatsApp has topped over 2 billion users. The platform is particularly ubiquitous in the Global South, especially in countries with unreliable internet and low average incomes and local entrepreneurs are not only using Whatsapp for personal messaging but also selling their products.

Source: Statista

As an example, I can order fish from a Mombasa fisher using WhatsApp and even though I tried to convince the merchant to consider an online e-commerce website, he politely declined on the basis that he has generated sufficient orders all via WhatsApp. In his own words “WhatsApp is already there,” Ricardo says. “So it’s the easiest way to reach somebody.”

I also foresee that with companies such as KaiOS and Safaricom’s, there will be a massive increase in the growth of smartphones in Africa. In recent news a few days old, Safaricom in a unique partnership with Google has launched a new product where customers can now access a brand new 4G-enabled smartphone by paying as low as KES20 daily for the devices. Safaricom will now give qualifying customers more accessible access to the internet through their world-first initiative dubbed Lipa Mdogo Mdogo in partnership with Android, Google’s operating system for mobile. This initiative will allow qualifying customers access to the internet and the world of possibilities through a smartphone that they can pay-as-they-use on a daily or weekly basis which will only increase the use of data messaging apps such as WhatsApp.

So in summary, I am delighted that we now have the ability for our learners to be able to learn through any of our diverse channels: iSMS, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp and Telegram. We look forward to continuous innovation both in terms of channels as well as expanding our content library to keep learners engaged and create an impact for every learner that interacts with Arifu.

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