New Pilot Program Uses Cell Phones to Monitor Agriculture
The Côte Sud Initiative has launched a new program as part of its agricultural support sector. The Earth Institute at Columbia University is working with the Organization for the Rehabilitation of the Environment (ORE), an NGO with a strong presence in the Côte Sud region, to pilot a new cell phone based survey tool to monitor agricultural practices, crop productivity, and farmer yields of crops. After the initial pilot phase, the technology is intended to provide real-time feedback to farmers on market information as well as best practices for farm management and seasonal crop calendars.
ORE has been operating in Haiti since 1985, working to improve the environmental, agricultural, and economic conditions in rural Haiti. ORE’s core programs focus on increasing the incomes of farmers through improved seeds, producing nutrient-rich foods for Haitian families with vegetable and tuber crops, and using high value commercial fruit trees to improve Haiti’s degraded environment. ORE’s agronomists have extensive experience in surveying the region and in collecting and analyzing agricultural data, but until now all of their data collection relied on paper forms and a manual data entry process.
CSI’s new pilot program, Information Communication Technology for Agriculture (ict4Ag), is a cell phone based agricultural monitoring system that can be used to collect field-level information about farmers. This information can be aggregated on a regional or national level, with the goal of eventually providing real-time updates and feedback to farmers. The pilot program is designed around existing networks of agronomists and agricultural extension agents that work with CSI partner organizations, including ORE. Agronomists will be equipped with smart phone based data collection toolkits, which include the phone-based agricultural survey as well as useful tools for data collection, such as GPS and a digital camera. Agricultural extension agents will be able to record important indicators on agriculture and enter data into cell-phone based forms and avoid the data entry process after the survey is complete. Some of the indicators in the first round of data collection include farm management practices, crops grown, yields, and tree planting and harvesting. Subsequent modules will collect detailed information on planting, harvesting, post-harvesting and tree planting / harvesting.
In the pilot stage, expected to last through April 2012, ict4Ag will assist ORE agronomists to collect information about farmers in the Côte Sud region. In later phases, CSI partners including ORE, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), and the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture will be a part of the expanded data collection process.
Agronomists practice using the Android phones loaded with the ict4Ag data collection toolkit
In October 2011, staff from EI and UNEP trained a group of agronomists and staff members from CSI partner organizations ORE and CRS to use Open Data Kit (ODK), an open source data collection tool, to collect agricultural data with the ict4Ag program. Training on the technology lasted three days. On the first day of training, management from ORE, UNEP and EI worked together to create a schedule for collection of agricultural data throughout the South Department. ORE agronomist helped to customize the ict4Ag survey to make the tool optimal for the conditions in the Côte Sud and the farmers in the region. The second day of training, Jean Elie Thys, a trained agronomist and the UNEP Environment Coordinator, gave a full day workshop to agronomists from ORE and CRS on the new ict4Ag pilot program. The training, conducted in Haitian Creole, included the use of the Google Android phones, an introduction to the CSI farmer baseline registration survey, an overview of the CSI-wide agricultural data collection strategy, and practice using the ict4Ag registration forms on phones.
The final day of training, ORE Agronomists use the ict4Ag tool in field practice.
On the third day of training, the agronomists were ready to test their new skills in the surrounding area. Each agronomist surveyed three farmers to become comfortable with the phones and identify any necessary changes to the survey questions. After field practice, the agronomists gave feedback on the aspects they anticipated being most difficult in real data collection. These included the battery life of the phone, the amount of time it takes to record a GPS location (especially on a cloudy day), where GPS locations are best taken, and the fact that while the surveys are in Haitian Creole, some of the phone instructions are in English. Data collection using the ict4Ag survey tool and Android-based data collection will begin in November, 2011.
The week of the ORE ict4Ag training, the South Department experienced severe flooding as a result of heavy rains in the region. Anticipating widespread damage to personal property and infrastructure, UNEP asked ORE to undertake a rapid agricultural assessment to gauge the agriculture losses caused by the flooding. ORE agronomists were able to use their new phones and take advantage of their new ODK knowledge to undertake a rapid agricultural assessment.
