1. Case Study of CABI Direct2Farm service in India, based
on VoiceSite technology:
Direct2Farm a Mobile Infomediary Service for farmers that
help them to access information on demand to enhance
knowledge, improve market readiness and respond well to
climatic adversities. Direct2Farm service is backed up by
CABI with the aim of making farming profitable and
sustainable, especially for the smallholder farmers.
In India, under the Direct2Farm project, CABI has been working with the
following partners in since 2009;
• IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited (IFFCO)-2009: Joint
Venture between IFFCO and Airtel, to provide voice
based agro-advisory to farmers. Currently reaching
about 4 million farmers in India
• mKisan (GSMA/USAID)-2012: Voice based agro-
advisory and market linkage support. Targeted to
reach 1 million farmers in 6 Indian states (Andhra
Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra and Karnataka)
• Café Móvel (Coffee Board of India)-2012: A specialized Infomediary service
for the coffee growers in the state of Karnataka, India. This is funded by
International Coffee Organization and supported by Coffee Board of India,
under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• Direct2Farm Scale Up: Direct2Farm project has
expanded in India and Africa. In India, about
400,000 farmers in 6 states are connected to
Direct2Farm mobile service as direct beneficiaries.
There are about 30,000 women farmers registered
with Direct2Farm mobile service. The
beneficiaries receive regular information and
updates on their mobile phone and also use an
IVR based Knowledge Repository, which has been
created to facilitate remote learning and expert
consultation by the farmers through a Toll Free IVR 1800-114-151.
Direct2Farm platform is based on the VoiceSite technology developed by its
technology partner Phoneme. The VoiceSite is accessed through a toll free
number 1800-114-151, and managed through a web-based dashboard. Currently
the service features available in Direct2Farm are;
• Registration through IVR or Call Centre

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• Weekly crop and livestock advisories through local language voice
messages as per the farming profile of the subscribers
• Weekly weather and market price alerts through local language voice
messages as per the location of the subscribers
• SMS alerts on demand or on special campaign (e.g. promoting blood
donation, quit tobacco etc.) in collaboration with different government
departments
• Expert consultation on crop and livestock problems through dedicated
farmers helpline
The service managed through a web application, comprising of the following
• A dashboard for real-time analytics
• A campaign manager for uploading content and execution of campaigns
• A CRM for managing subscriber data
• Campaign reports
• Helpline reports
Direct2Farm Dashboard & Campaign Management Panels

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Impact Assesment
An impact assessment study undertaken by IMC Worldwide Ltd, a leading
international development consultant and monitoring and evaluation specialist
during Dec 2015, revealed the following encouraging facts about the Direct2Farm
service;
Mobile information delivered by Direct2Farm has contributed towards
tangible gains by the farmers

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Farmers are willing to trial new knowledge gained through Direct2Farm and
share the learning between them
In summary it has been found that mobile agriculture, or for that matter any
ICT application in agriculture, is effective when it is scalable, hyper-
localized and helps people make tangible gains. However, the informational
services are not financially viable, unless they are bundled with
transactional services, especially financial services such as m-Banking, m-
Money or m-Insurance.

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D2F Key Performance Indicators 2015
• Total Number of subscribers: 427,000 (Women 30,000)
• Number villages covered: 1890
• Voice Messages Narowcasted: 10 milion
• Average listenership: 60%
• Text Messages Narrowcasted: 7 million
• Calls in Farmer Helpline: 50,000
• Messages developed on Crop: 4090
• Messages developed on Livestock: 1750
• Weather Alerts: 250
D2F Success Stories 2015:
Encouraging women in adapting mobile phones:
Mobile phone adoption by women is abysmally low in most of the developing
countries. As per GSMA analysis, only 11% of the rural women have direct
access to phones. A lot of this can be attributed to negative socio-cultural
perception regarding mobile phones in villages.
Through the Direct2Farm project in India, efforts were made to ensure to pass on
an impactful message in the rural mass irrespective of gender that mobile can
bring change in their life if it is rightly used.
In this effect, an event organized in one backward village in Haryana, northern
India, on the eve of International Women’s Day in 2015. The even was about a
story competition, which purpose was to gather the maximum number of real-life
stories from females, where mobile has got some significant change in their life.
76 women participated and penned down their stories, in this competition. In
these 76 participants, 28 were schoolgirls, 11 were housewives, nine older than
55 years of age, and three completely illiterate and seven who asked somebody
else to write their stories.
The rest were youth. This figure was quite encouraging. Finally, three were
selected as winners out of 6 finalists based upon ranking, which was done on
quality of narration, depth, intensity and originality of the story.
This entire episode has brought all the females together and encouraged them to
write their stories. The level of participation was showing the emerging
confidence among the females of that village; this was not less than their male
counterparts.

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Winner of the competition was Manisha More, here is her story which she
delivered in a impactful manner
“I was in class 10th
, when
this incidence took place. It
was an evening when the
entire village was in the
celebration mode. There
was a marriage ceremony
in Bibipur village; people
were in festive mood. They
were dancing, the music
band was at the top of their
tone, and loud noise of
firecrackers can be heard
all around. Suddenly a
firecracker slipped from the
hand of a person going in the marriage procession, this firecracker remained
unnoticed. I picked it up and kept it considering it as a roll of wool. I was
completely ignorant that the object could be an unfired firecracker. I cut the wool
layer of the firecracker; still I could not make it out what it was. My father saw me
with that object and asked me to throw it away as it is dangerous firecracker. I
convinced my father that the object is harmless, as it has been used during
marriage procession. But, he kept on insisting me to throw it away.
I thought stove (chulha) would be the best place to dispose it off. Unknowingly, I
threw it into the stove. Then after, my mother came into kitchen to lit fire for
cooking. The object got blasted as soon as she set on fire. She was got injured
badly and got fainted. Her one hand got badly injured. I was in panic and could
not understand what to do. I went to my neighbors and they immediately called
on my father’s mobile. My father straightway called a doctor and called some
relatives to help with some money. My mother was hospitalized and finally, she
was saved. Years have crossed to this incidence. Still, her left hand is not as
efficient as her right hand. This reminds me of the accident. But, I am happy she
is around us. I am really thankful to the mobile technology, which helped to
manage everything quickly and saved my mother. She ended up her story with a
impactful quotation ‘Mobile par hogi jis ki command, duniya mein hogi uski
demand (One who will have command over the mobile will be always in
demand),"
Supporting farmers in coping up with climate change: Hemlal’s Story
Most of the areas of Jharkhand, a tribal sate in the east-central part of India are
drought prone. Farmers here
depend mainly on rainfall for the
farming and late monsoon or less
rain makes situation desperate for
them. Hemlal Prasad Yadav is one
such farmer from Giridih district of
Jharkhand, who has always been

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troubled by the frequent droughts and had to toil hard to feed his family. Being in
a remote area, there is hardly and support or information available about weather
forecast or new technologies that can help him to grow crop with very less water.
He heard about Direct2Farm service from the village headman, when volunteers
from Kisan Sanchar visited their village and Hemlal immediately decided to
register in the service; because not only he would get information directly in his
mobile phone, there was a free trial period offered so that he can really test
whether the service is good or not. After registering, Hemlal started getting
regular crop advisory and weather updates on his phone, and gained new
knowledge about how to retain soil moisture in field so that he can grow crops
with minimum irrigation. He also learned about pests prevalent in this location
and how to control them. With this new knowledge, Hemlal is confident that he
will be able to get a decent harvest this year and his family will no longer go
hungry. In Hemlal’s world… “This service is a life saver for the farmers in this
remote location, if other farmers too, give their mobile numbers, then everyone
will get benefit from this service and our family and children will be happy and
healthy”
Educating farmers on safe pesticide usage: Suresh’s Story
Suresh Kumar is a smallholder farmer from the Jind district of Haryana in northern India.
In the local market, pesticide dealers sell all kinds
of chemicals to the unsuspecting farmers, by
making tall claims. Farmers get panicked when
the see their crops are getting damaged because
of some insect or disease and in desperation,
they try anything that the dealers suggest.
However, those chemicals mostly do not do any
good and each year many farmers make huge
loss first by spending money on expensive
chemicals and then when their crop fails. This
has been happening for years and farmers have
taken it as way of life because they don’t have
any other way to get immediate advice when the
pests attack their crops. During the last Rabi
season, Suresh attended a Krishi Vichar Gosthi (farmers’ consultation) organized by
Kisan Sanchar, and there he heard about Direct2Farm. The volunteers told him that
Direct2Farm service would provide him advance information about various pests and
how to manage them. Not only that, farmers can calls up the Toll free number (1800-
114-151) and record their questions, which will be answered by the agriculture experts
and they can have live chat with the experts, any time. This seemed like a ray of hope
for Suresh, because he was worried about pest problem in his crop. However, he was
sceptical, since this was a mobile service and he has never used mobile agro-advisory
service before. The volunteers assured him that he can try the service free for some time
and only if he finds the service good, he needs to continue. This built confidence and
Suresh immediately registered himself for the Direct2Farm service. The volunteers
asked him about which crop varieties he grows and he was explained that the experts
will provide him information which is relevant for the crop varieties that he grows so that
he gets what is needed and no unnecessary botheration. Since then Suresh is a regular
subscriber of Direct2Farm service and he has gained lot of new knowledge. In Suresh’s

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own words…. “Information provided through these messages is very useful and farmers
should work according to the advices to get most benefit. I find the helpline service best,
because talking to an expert helps me to clear my doubts on the spot and no one can
mislead me because they know I can always cross check from an expert, then and
there. I will definitely continue with Direct2Farm in future
Applying Human Centered Design principles for content
developemnt:
One of the key success factors
of any service is its closeness
with the users; it’s said that
knowing you is knowhow.
Direct2Farm, in spite of being a
mobile-based service, firmly
believes in human factor and
has created a robust feedback
mechanism where farmers are
periodically contacted for service
feedback and improvement. In
fact the Toll free number 1800-
114-151 has a section meant
only for providing feedback by the farmers, which are documented, and
appropriate actions are taken for improvement. Recently Direct2Farm team
travelled to 4 villages in the Vaishali district of Bihar in eastern India for a
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) study to understand information needs and
gaps among the farmers in the area. This is important because at the onset of
Kharif season, Direct2Farm should be ready with all the critical information that
the farmers need to get a good harvest. Application of PRA principles makes
interaction interactive, and farmers themselves come out with their key problems,
which is critical for effective service delivery. Some interesting revelations that
came out of the study is that there is lot of difference between what the male and
female farmers know about weed control and grain storage. It was discovered
that the women folk, just by years of practical experience, has gathered valuable
insights about managing weeds and grain insects, which their menfolk are still
unaware. This one was a real example of women empowerment and at the end
of 2 days and 100 kilometres of muddy trail; Direct2Farm team came back wiser
and happier.