AgLinks Feedback Synthesis

1
AgLinks Feedback Synthesis

• Tim Martyn

2
Overview

• 1. General improvements user friendliness,
  look, categorizing information, searching for
  information, expanding on what is there, keeping
  it current and facilitating social media
• 2. Donors using value chain analysis to analyse
  project interventions, summarizing, and
  sustainability.
• 3. Farmers visual information, audio, info
  available on mobile phones and access to
  practical tools
• 4. Industry prices, regulations, standards,
  contacts, transport and freight costs, and
  business devl. tools
• 5. Government improved technologies, improved
  inputs, ICT extension aids, statistical trends,
  case studies, trade rules and negotiations

3
1. General improvements

• PRESENTATION OF INFORMATION
• Change the font/size for text to make it biggest,
  easier to read. Particularly over front photo so
  it can be read more easily. (Hold cursor over the
  photo, stops scrolling?)
• Can we make the front page more colourful, with
  more photos of a range of different products
  available? Can we make it all fit on one page to
  avoid scrolling to the bottom to get access to
  most recent information, etc.
• Arranging information via commodity, making it
  more searchable by commodity is a great idea SO
  WE NEED MORE INFORMATION FROM YOU. More on all
  the important commodities
• Make it easier to locate information by country.
  Perhaps a drop down box accessible from the front
  page? Also a search box on the front page could
  help.
• Include a date of publish for all the documents
  so we know how recent they are (particularly for
  market reports, etc)
• Include an abstract or short description of each
  paper or document

4
1. General (cont)

• FACILITATING DISCUSSION , INPUT AND OUTPUTS
• Discussion forums on some of the big issues,
  about problems encountered from the region, the
  sorts of interventions that worked, etc. Host
  webinars to help provide more information about
  these issues, and create discussion. Could link
  to agriculture ministry help desks where experts
  provide more information and follow up.
• Separate out the solutions from the big issues,
  and associate with a how to portion of the
  website to provide positive guidance on the steps
  that farmers/industry could take
• Develop a suggestions box which displays comments
  and suggestions for the website, on the website.
  We can leave this open for the next month or so
  while the website is being developed. Use this to
  make our improvements

5
1. General Cont

• KEEPING IT CURRENT AND USERS UP TO DATE
• Latest news displayed on website we have events
  calendar, blogs, can also link the webpage to
  latest agricultural newsletters (e.g. LRD, Spore,
  Agrikulta Nius from Solomons or others) and
  stories in print media
• Send regular updates and links back to the
  website via email (from contact list) and
  facebook (for those that have become facebook
  friends of SPC)
• Can we make use of country contact points to help
  facilitate information coming from countries
  are there communication officers in ministries
  who can help with materials, contacts, events,
  news, etc?

6
1.General (cont)

• SOCIAL MEDIA
• Use social media to run competitions to generate
  new content for the site, i.e. writing case
  studies in order to win prize (trip to come and
  present at a regional forum)
• Can we have more training on use of social media
  for encouraging connectivity and relationship
  building between government, farmers, industry,
  others in the value chain.

7
2. Donors/project partners

• CO-ORDINATION Website could be used to provide
  information on all the different projects that
  are working in the region, which people can
  access. Website can also assist with project
  co-ordination by value chain mapping project
  intervention by commodity by country
• For Fiji we developed a map of all the
  different projects by the areas they targeted
  along the value chain, whether improving inputs
  (soil, seeds) or post-harvest handling, markets
  (market access). Can we help do this for other
  countries, for other commodities?
• Ministries of Finance maintain lists of all the
  agriculture sector projects, can this information
  be sorted/filtered by commodity and intervention
  type, so that we can get value chain or commodity
  chain maps of all the agriculture sector
  interventions
• Could be done in association with the agriculture
  sector plans and policies being developed in
  partnership with SPC and other donors (FAO, etc)

8
2. Donors/project partners (cont)

• CO-ORDINATION CONTINUED
• Also value chain concept can be extended further
  to map contact database by a chain, rather than
  just location. Once we have contact list
  developed we can locate all the actors for each
  commodity by country, or for the region, and
  present that in a commodity map (rather than a
  geographic map)?

9
2. Donors/project partners (cont)

• COUNTRY SUMMARIES
• Could provide access to country factsheets, key
  statistical information and industry information,
  any other key issues. SPC PRISM prepares regional
  statistical handbooks with information on all
  countries, and many country statistical offices
  produce national factsheets with key information
  and trends. These could be added to the website
  as part of country profiles.

10
2. Donors/project partners (cont)

• SUSTAINABILITY
• Given the amount of agricultural research, market
  research and other information available here,
  the costs of maintaining it all on the website,
  are there ways of developing revenue streams via
  this website?

11
3. Farmers

• ICTS
• Need to link into mobile phones, identifying that
  connection issues may mean that farmers in remote
  areas unable to access, so need to be able to
  send some information via mobile phone. REMEMBER
  the website is designed for smart phones as well
  so that it can be read on all electronic devices
• ITC and Fiji AgTrade developing some great new
  mobile phone based tools, which are farmer
  focussed, private sector driven developments
  mAlerts, weather, Makete, etc. We will try and
  link to these via the website and promote the
  replication of these in other interested
  countries through our new PAPP project.

12
3. Farmers (cont)

• VISUAL, AUDIO AND PRACTICAL TOOLS
• More information on gross margins, profitability
  ratios, other tools to help farm as a business
• More extension guides, practical tools for
  farming added here (probably many, many of these
  in agricultural ministries around the region
  please send them to us!)
• Use of other mediums audio podcasts of farm
  extension, video extension tools, other ways of
  communicating technical information to farmers.
  Graphical representation, cartoons and other
  visual aids to help explain the issues. Farmers
  learn by watching and hearing, not so much by
  reading

13
3. Farmers (cont)

• LOCATION AND CO-ORDINATION
• Collect all the contact lists of all the farmer
  associations and organisations out there, so we
  can load these up, will be critical to making
  this work. We need name, organisation, location,
  commodity. GIS location would be great

14
4. Industry

• MARKET INFORMATION
• More information on prices. Interest in having
  access to world prices, spot prices, market
  prices in Pacific countries and the major trading
  partners. Where this information is publically
  available we can link to this e.g. to AgTrade
  trade statistics database for Fiji, and Fugalei
  market prices for Samoa and Tonga market prices
  studies (links to Agriculture Ministry and
  Statistics Office website publications) to world
  prices for major commodities like coffee, cocoa,
  copra (links to commodity association websites,
  like ICCO) to the Pacific Trade Statistics
  database (www.pacifictradestatistics.com) which
  maintains a searchable database of Pacific trade
  flows by commodity). PTIC in Auckland also
  maintains market prices website, link to that.

15
4. Industry (cont)

• TOOLS
• More posters and practical guides on quality
  standards could be produced and shared here, help
  get into the hands of farmers and focus them on
  market standards.
• More information on market access issues and
  requirements, per product, per country
  labelling, biosecurity, food safety, rules of
  origin, etc
• Include business development services and
  software, accounting tables, software to help
  prepare a business plan, to help prepare for a
  loan.com, etc

16
Industry (cont)

• LOCATION AND CO-ORDINATION
• Lists of exporters and importers, what
  commodities they are interested in, to expand
  contact database
• TRANSPORT
• Transport schedules shipping schedules and
  aeroplane schedules. Not likely to be able to get
  these for all countries. Costs of freight from
  different countries also commercial info often
  but major issues around freight, new developments
  could be identified and shared.

17
5. Government

• TECHNOLOGY
• More information on farm and processing
  technologies. Need a new technology component.
  Good examples of some countries in the region
  utilising appropriate technology (e.g.
  hydroponics, crop coverings, land management,
  contour farming etc) can we have more information
  on them, how they were used, their impact, etc.
  Information on traditional knowledge and
  technologies here could also be shared through
  this website. DSAP, a previous project funded by
  the EU, trialled a lot of appropriate
  small-scale, sustainable technologies and case
  studies on the design, and impact of these, could
  be shared

18
5. Government (cont)

• TOOLS
• Also could add more information on soil type and
  crop suitability maps to help with planning.
  These have been produced for some countries (e.g.
  Fiji and Samoa), more could/should be produced
  for other countries
• Posters and other visual tools on production
  techniques great way of helping with extension,
  need to produce more and upload those that exist.
  

19
5. Government (cont)

• ANALYSIS
• Case studies success stories, learn more from
  these. Can commission some more of these (along
  the lines of Learning for growth series). Perhaps
  focus on one country per month, provide a new
  story or series of stories from that country on
  what is happening there.
• Display more information on statistical trends in
  graphs, to help illustrate some of the key trends
  that have been identified. Help to policy-makers.