Digital Green

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Outline

• Digital Green
• Video and mediated instruction for agriculture
  extension

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Agriculture Extension

• Dissemination of expert agriculture information
  and technology to farmers
• Training Visit extension popularized by the
  World Bank in 1970s
• Face-to-face interactions of extension officers
  and farmers
• 100,000 extension officers in India
• Extension agent-to-farmer ratio is 1 2,000
• 610,000 villages in India with average
  1,000-person population
• Typical extension officer salary is
• Rs. 4,000 per month

Extension officer commuting between farms
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Agricultural Social Networks
?
Main source of information about new technology
and farm practices over the past 365 days
(India NSSO 2005)
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The Problem
How can the speed and effectiveness of
agriculture extension be improved at a reasonable
cost?
Extension officer on-field demonstration
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Digital Video for Extension

• Video provides
• Resource-savings human, cost, time
• Accessibility for non-literate farmers

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Parameters Varied
Early Experimentation
Early Experimentation
Background of actors in video, Types of content,
Location and timing of screening, Method of
dissemination,
Degree of mediation,
Background of mediator, etc.
Background of actors in video, Types of content,
Location and timing of screening, Method of
dissemination,
Degree of mediation,
Background of mediator, etc.
Six months in field trying various
combinations Over 200 days of surveys,
ethnographic investigation, and iterative design
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Digital Green System

• Participatory content production
• Video database
• Mediated instruction
• Structured sequencing

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Participatory Content Production
Digital Green System

• Introduction to innovations
• Standard extension procedure
• Rough storyboarding
• Repetitive pattern easy to learn
• Minimize post-production
• Local farmers on their own fields
• Reduce perception of teachers
• Promote local stars

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Digital Green System
Video Database
Online video database (http//www.digitalgreen.org
) gt250 videos of 8 minutes each Quality-contro
l, minor video editing, and metadata
tagging Indexed by type, topic, locale, season,
crop, etc. Distributed via DVD
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Digital Green System
Mediated Instruction

• Local mediator
• Performance-based honorarium
• Human engagement
• Field questions, capture feedback, encourage
  participation
• Balance genders
• On-demand screenings
• Choice time and place
• Not stand-alone kiosk
• Support and monitoring
• Daily metrics and feedback
• Official extension staff

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Digital Green System
Structured Sequencing
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Experimental Set-Up
Preliminary Evaluation
11-month study

• 20 villages in Karnataka
• Language Kannada
• Crops Ragi, banana, mulberry, coconut
• Population 50-80 households
• Irrigation 10-20 households with access
• Television 15-20 households
• Metrics
• Knowledge Before-and-after
• Attendance Farmers at each screening
• Interest Intent to take-up a practice
• Adoption Number of households taking up each new
  farming practice or technology

Classical GREEN (8) Same as usual
Expert
Digital Green (9) 3 sessions per week Cost Rs.
9,500 (240) for TV/DVD per village PC / camera
costs shared Extension officer shared Mediator
salary Accountability Daily metrics and
feedback Official extension staff
Research Assistant
Extension Officer
Local Mediator
Local Mediator
Local Mediator
Poster Green(3) Same as Digital Green with local
mediator, but no TV/DVD Mediator makes posters
and holds regular group sessions
Farming Community
Farming Community
Farming Community
Audio Green (1) Same as Poster Green with MP3
audio tracks from videos
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Digital Green Early Results
7 times more adoptions over classical extension
Sustained local presence Mediation Repetition
(and novelty) Integration into existing
extension operations Social homophily between
mediator, actor, and farmer Desire to be on TV
Trust built from identities of farmers and
villages in videos
11 months 13 villages, 3 nights a week, 1,000
regulars
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Cost-Benefit
Note Decreasing amortized cost of hardware with
time and scale
Digital Green is at least 10 times more effective
per dollar spent than classical extension!
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Digital Green System
Network Effect

• Viral Web 2.0 in the Web-less world
• Content ecosystem education, entrepreneurship,
  entertainment
• Cost-realistic access TVs, DVD players, and
  camcorders
• Reinforce existing social networks to diffuse
  innovations through communities
• Local idol competitions to be a better farmer

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Discussion
Gandhi, R., R. Veeraraghavan, K. Toyama, V.
Ramprasad. Digital Green Participatory Video for
Agricultural Extension, in Proc. IEEE/ACM Intl
Conf on Information and Communication
Technologies and Development (ICTD2007) and in
Proc. Annual Meetings of American Society of
Agronomy (ASA, CSSA, and SSSA), 2007.

• At reasonable cost, potential ten-fold increase
  in effectiveness of agriculture extension via
  Digital Green
• Current one-year experiment to isolate the
• effects of DG social engineering
• Future work
• - Research
• Create more motivational
  currency, without money
• Improve mediation by annotating
  videos
• Build instant feedback mechanisms
• Develop an easy-to-use platform
  for sharing content
• - Practical
• Spin-out an independent NGO to scale
  Digital Green

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Thanks!
http//www.digitalgreen.org