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Boosting yields and fighting crop failure with ICT in rural Sri Lanka
When the local farmers from Embilipitiya showed up at Bimal Prasad’s office, the eggplant samples they were carrying weren’t pretty. Covered in pockmarks left by an unknown pest, the vegetables were ruined and the farmers were desperate. “Seventy five percent of output is vanished,” Bimal explained. The farmers needed answers if they were going to save their crops and have enough income to make it through the year.
Luckily for the farmers, they came to the right place. Bimal Prasad is not an agriculture expert. Rather he is a community ICT provider. Bimal offers ICT training programs for young people, communications services to the villagers around Embilipitya, and — in the case of these farmers — a lifeline to the government office providing agricultural support.
After seeing their samples from the ruined crop of eggplant, known as bringal in Sinhalese, Bimal took photographs with his digital camera, emailed those photos as attachments to Mr. Rohan at the government agricultural resource center, and waited with the farmers in the telecenter for a reply. Mr. Rohan soon rang by mobile phone, and the advice was dispensed: use a particular pesticide, and if you continue to have problems come back and we will try another option. It worked.
Telecenters as magnets for farming families
South Asian farmers have traditionally used each other, and government advisors, as resources for improved crop yields and market planning. But as farming techniques become more sophisticated, as transportation grows more costly with rising fuel prices, and as big farmers consolidate agricultural land into fewer hands, it becomes harder for small farmers to compete. A drought, blight, or infestation can devastate their income. New crop rotation techniques and other agricultural information can help.
The expansion of telecenters in rural South Asia has provided farmers with an important resource for accomplishing this: information and communication technologies. The bringal farmers were able to photograph, report, and discuss their infestation problem with invaluable visual aids — and get timely solutions. What would otherwise require an expensive, lengthy, and uncertain trip to a faraway city by bullocks cart, and the navigation of complex government bureaucracy once there, can now be accomplished with a few clicks (the shutter, the mouse, and the receiver) among other important inputs such as basic ICT skills, knowledgeable and trusted infomediaries and other social infrastructure.
This is not an unusual case. On recent research visits to five remote rural telecenters in southern India and Sri Lanka, a similar story consistently emerged: telecenters can act as a magnet to draw in farmers, anchor social spaces conducive to knowledge sharing and promote critical information exchanges that enhance crop security. According to Bimal Prasad, in his telecenter alone “an average of ten farmers come every month” with similar concerns about their crops.
A variety of factors combine to draw farmers and prime participation. For example, their children come for ICT training and bring home stories for their parents, or specific outreach programs may be hosted by the telecenters to teach (using ICT) new agricultural practices. Community word-of-mouth is also important. Students’ training may be one of the most significant bridges to their farming families. With training programs at the core of the telecenter work (such as Microsoft Unlimited Potential courses) the graduates, or diplomats, of the centers are spread throughout local communities. Telecenter staff members say the experiences of youth in training programs is a significant entry point for their parents — an opportunity to build trust in the centers and in the knowledge the centers can provide.
In addition to the role of the individual center programs as a magnet for farming families, the broader telecenter network is providing opportunities for farmers to come together and share what is working to improve crop yields. The network of telecenters began in 1994 with the support of the well established NGO Sarvodaya, and slowly grew. Along the way it was aided by programs such as Microsoft UP, the Telecenter Family, Agriclinics, and the Virtual Village. These programs, and a government partnership with the World Bank, have created a network of hundreds of telecenters and shared programs that bring them together. Bimal Prasad, the center manager nearest to Embilipitiya, reports that when he attends Telecenter Family programs he shares the experiences of the farmers in his region, and brings back with him the experiences of others.
Crop yield benefits during hard times
Rural access to ICT — and to the community centers that provide it – can have a broad impact on farming, animal husbandry, and fishing alike. But in rural Sri Lanka, the specific examples of crop yields benefiting from ICT access appear to exceed examples from the fishing and livestock sectors. This may be a question of proximity and mobility: it is easier to bring a handful of green beans into a telecenter than a pregnant water buffalo or a kettle of diseased fish.
In the area of crop yields, the needs served by telecenters are many, and increasing.
A staple crop in the farms around Embilipitya is the wetakolu, a type of green bean. Local farmers had noticed with alarm that their crops had been drying up – shriveling so much that they were useless. Like the bringal farmers, they brought a sample of the shriveled beans and used the same tools: digital photography, email, and a cell phone. The result for the wetakolu was more complicated. The problem was not a pest but overexposure to sun, something that at least one local villager speculated was due to climate change. The recommendation was to cover the garden area with plastic sheeting, and introduce fertilizer. The result again was a success, and the farmers returned to the telecenter to thank the staff for helping to save their crop.
While the loss of some crops like bringal and wetakolu have a significant impact on a farmer’s livelihood, other crops – such as rice, which Sri Lankans call paddy – are the foundation of the local food system. When local farmers around Embilipitya began noticing that their paddy crops were becoming brittle and turning brown, their concerns were especially acute. Through their experience with the telecenter they knew they had a resource to turn to, and again brought in samples. The agricultural advisor diagnosed a disease called keedawa, recommended a fungicide and fertilizer, and again the problem was solved.
Boosting income generation
At the bustling local vegetable markets in Sri Lanka’s villages and cities, shoppers select from an array of colorful and fresh produce to feed their families. What the shoppers don’t see are the vegetables that never make it to the produce stands: the bringal pocked with holes because of pestilence, the wetakolu harmed by the suns rays in drought conditions, and the paddy stalks shriveled and brown because of disease. For Sri Lanka’s small farmers, the difference between a market stall filled with fresh vegetables and one that is empty is more than just a source of frustration experienced by a shopper planning dinner. For farmers, the difference affects their livelihoods all year long.
By fighting back against crop failure with the help of information and communication technologies, local Sri Lankan farmers are able to keep up in an increasingly difficult agricultural climate. They are also able to better understand what their children learn at trainings in these community telecenters, and the value of the money they spend on tuition. According to Ganga Vidya, director of the Village Knowledge Centers program across the water in Tamil Nadu, India, the role of the telecenters as a resource for farmers is foremost about rural self-sufficiency. Closing the digital divide, she says, is about “making it okay for people to stay in villages as farmers.”
Isura Silva, the head of Fusion, the NGO which connects and supports the Sri Lankan telecenters for Sarvodya, describes the goal of the rural ICT networks in a way similar to Ms. Vidya. “Telecenters are a place to bridge distance,” says Mr. Silva, so that farmers can be farmers, but still benefit from what the city has to offer.
Recommended citation
West, M. (2008). Connectivity and food security: Boosting yields and fighting crop failure with ICT in rural Sri Lanka. Seattle: Technology & Social Change Group, University of Washington Information School.
