A flagship CTO event, this has grown into a platform for knowledge-sharing among peer groups steering ICT projects in e-delivery of health care, education and governance. This Forum echoes the Commonwealth's 2013 theme: The Road Ahead for Africa.

1. ICT FOR FOOD SECURITY: EXPERIENCES
FROM LIFE LONG LEARNING FOR FARMERS
IN SOUTH WESTERN UGANDA
Daniel, Ninsiima
Makerere University Agricultural Research Institute
Kabanyolo
P.O Box 7062, Kampala
Uganda
Email: dninsiima@gmail.com
Tel: +256712035192,

2. BACKGROUND
 Traditional Agricultural Extension Services (AES) intended to
serve smallholder farmers in Uganda and Sub-Saharan Africa at
large have failed to make significant impacts (Jones, 2007), due
partly to the lack of knowledge-sharing practices to disseminate
timely agricultural information.
 However, the emergence of Information Communication
Technologies (ICTs) in the last decade

3. ICTs for Agriculture

4. ABOUT THE L3F INITIATIVE
 Lifelong Learning for Farmers (L3 Farmers) demonstrates
Commomwealth of Learning's (COL) ability to partner with
communities and organisations, and make effective use of ICTs to
facilitate learning for development
 Aims at helping rural communities find appropriate technology-
based open and distance education to improve their livelihoods
 The programme is a response to a critical need: the wealth of
information resulting from agricultural research and development
often fails to travel the last mile to the villages of the developing
world where it is most needed

5. L3F LINKING SECTOR PLAYERS THROUGH ICT

6. EXTENSION CHALLENGES IN UGANDA
 highly understaffed with one extension educator required to serve up
to 46,000 farmers and yet poorly paid
 Lack of relevant research information presented in an easy to
understand manner and localized to the needs of local small holder
farmers
 Lack of knowledge and information articulating best practices and
addressing interconnected socio-economic development issues
including agriculture, education, health, culture and the
environment.

7. 7
Diverse enterprises on the same piece of land

8. ICTS FOR AGRICULTURE
Uganda’s communications sector is one of the fastest growing in
Africa. As in the rest of the continent, this is largely due to the
rapid expansion of mobile telephony.
 Mobile telephone subscribers rose well over 17 million by the
end of 2012— up from more than 9.4 million in December 2009
— which is about one-third of the country’s population.

9. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
0
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000
12,000,000
14,000,000
16,000,000
2005/06
2006/07
2007/08
2008/09
2009/10
2010/11
Number of
Subscribers
Teledensity
Source: UCC , Post and Telecommunications Annual Market Review
2010/2011
Uganda Fixed & Mobile Subscriptions & Penetration, 2010/11

10. POPULATION COVERED BY MOBILE CELLULAR NETWORKS IN UGANDA (%)
(Source: TradingEconomics.com)

11. M-LEARNING FOR AGRICULTURE EXTENSION
In 2009 COL conducted an information needs asessment
survey to find out the sources of agriculture extension
information, means of access and several other
parameters

12. ACCESS TO EXTENSION INFORMATION
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Soil & water
conservation
seed & planting
materials
Pest & disease
management
Post harvest
handling
Product
marketing
Record keeping
& financial
management
Leadership &
team work
Kind of Information
Percentage(%)
Access
No Access

13. SOURCES OF AGRICULTURE INFORMATION
Sourceofinformation Response %
Radio 136 65.07
Television 1 0.48
Mobilephones 5 2.39
Newspapers 11 5.26
Otherwrittenmaterials 6 2.87
Wordofmouth 50 23.92
Internet 0 0.00

14. INFORMATION NEEDS
Soil fertilitytechnologies 20
Market Information 35
Fertilizers (% yes) 11
Soil and water technologies 10
Crop management technologies 14
Crop varietytechnologies 9
Livestock improved breeds 1

15. OBJECTIVES OF THE SERVICE
 Innovatively use information and
communication technology systems
especially the mobile phone to complement
the conventional agricultural extension
system;
 Use the mobile phone to enable free flow of
agriculturally-related information and
knowledge within and between farmers and
extension workers using cost effective
communication technologies in a sound
sustainable social enterprise and
 Translate available research content into
local dialects and disseminate information to
farmers in languages they can understand

16. SHORT MESSAGING SERVICE (SMS)
“Use neem tree leaves to keep your grain safe: Dry the leaves, grind them and
mix with the grain in the bags that you want to store”
“Use tobacco to control spidermites in tomatoes and borer in cabbage. Grind
the leaves, mix with ash and soap water. Let it stay for a night, sift and
spray.”

17. COSTS OF THE SERVICE
 Retrieving a message through a
keyword or sending questions
to the system through sms costs
220/= shs ($ 0.08) and and for
each sms 50/= shs ($0.02) is
credited to us
 The farmer gets instant advice
which saves his crops and gets
a good yield. They will now
need accurate information on
the changing market prices so
they can get a good price.
 The farmer will always come
back since seasons keep
changing and his information
needs keep changing as well
Seected Farmers’ questions
“256751688459 L3f ndahinga emondi
zayenda kurabya zome kiraretwaki”
meaning what causes my potatoes to
wilt at a time when they start
flowering and another asks
“ “256785037138 L3F uganda okubyara
emondi mu layini kirayongyera
ahamusharyro?” meaning does
planting my potatoes in lines
increase yeild?

19. CHALLENGES OF SMS/ RELEVANCE OF VOICE
 Limitation to 160 characters for text-based messages
 Very many are illiterate and cannot retrieve text messages
from their phones
 Farmers are more comfortable with voice than text

20. INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE/AUDIO MESSAGING

21. IN THE FARMERS’ OWN WORDS
“We have more than 46,000 farmers in our sub-county but we have only
one extension officer to serve all of them. Yet, farmers have diverse
enterprises which an extension officer may not handle even if he reached
them.” Apollo Kaboroga of Kacerere village in Bufundi Sub-county says
He continues, “Through the mobile phone, i have been able to get more
income from my potatoes since the information provided helps us to link
directly with buyers in Kampala. I can now sell a bag of potatoes for as
much as 80,000 thousand shillings compared to the paltry 50,000 or
sometimes 40,000 shs middlemen paid by taking advantage of our
ignorance of market prices.”

23.  Benefitted 1,000 farmers
since 2009
 Content sent twice a week
 Farmers ask questions
anytime anywhere
 SMS system sustains itself
through a share revenue
agreement with the SMS
company
 The voice messaging
application has been tested
with over 500 farmers and
in the first month of its
operation, we received over
100 user calls. We are now
engaging NAADS to adopt it and
make it free for all.
About the system

24. SCALING UP ICT INTO EXTENSION
 Integrating the both the voice and SMS based platforms
into the National Extension System so it reach a far wider
audience
 Working with Telecom companies and the government to
make it a free service so that all farmers can benefit

25. KIGEZI HIGHLANDS