Digital Farmer Services
MLC Voyager | Created by Esoko
A powerful community management platform that supports organizations to identify, profile, collect field data and provide services such as agricultural advisories, credit, insurance to rural folks around Africa.
924,197 Lives Impacted
Numerous studies have shown significant positive impacts of using our technology to address information asymmetry within agricultural value chains. Esoko information services have proven to results in 10% income increases to smallholders through systematic Randomized Control studies conducted by New York University - Center for Technology and Economic Development - (CTED) and CIRAD- A French based research organization. Details about these farmer impact studies can be found at: http://sites.bu.edu/neudc/files/2014/10/paper_345.pdf .
We track the impacts of our work through several initiatives. We routinely conduct baseline surveys, midline surveys end endline evaluations to test the impact of the services we provide. We also partner with reputable international research institutions and universities to conduct Randomized Control Trials (RCT) to systematically measure the impacts of our services. These impact indicators are shared annually with our partners and shareholders.
We track a number of indicators under three of the SDGs including:
• SDG 1: No poverty (e.g. Number of individuals by sex who have doubled income as a result of Esoko product and services; Number of individuals covered by social protection systems)
• SDG 2: Zero Hunger (e.g. Number of farmers by sex who now receive timely access to market information and pricing as a result of Esoko product and services)
• SDG 9: Industry, innovation & infrastructure (e.g. Number of small-scale enterprises who have gained access to financial services including credit as a result of Esoko services and products)
The Innovation
Esoko DFS starts with basic information services which delivers rich localized agricultural content and market information to farmer’s via simple mobile phones. These contents include market prices on various agricultural commodities, agronomic advisories, weather forecasts and Climate Smart Agricultural Tips which are delivered to farmer’s mobile phones via SMS, Voice SMS, IVR and call centre in local languages. The farmer only needs a simple feature phone to access these information in her/her own language, thus bypassing the issue of illiteracy and high cost of smartphones.
To help make the farmers more visible, digitally integrated and business compliant, Esoko also provides a simple but powerful communication tool for businesses, projects, NGOs and governments to connect with farmers. The company offers a cloud hosted web platform that allows any project or organization to customize their networks and areas of interest, profile recipients, then send information to them at a low cost via SMS, voice SMS and a call centre.
Esoko’s original content and e-extension offering includes:
Market prices covering over 52 agricultural commodities
Climate smart agricultural technologies and seasonal forecast delivered over SMS, Voice SMS, IVR and call centre.
Bids & Offers, linking buyers to sellers in an innovative virtual marketplace
Good Agronomic Practices
Call Centre staffed with agric experts speaking local languages
Organizations may also send their own content - promotions,
Reminders, announcements etc. via the platform
Over 1 million farmers have received more than 30 million messages over the Esoko platform via SMS, IVR, Voice SMS and over 420,000 calls coming in through the call centre and the social and economic impacts of these services have been phenomenal. Riding on these services, we expanded the information services to include a much broader range of services in 2017. Esoko Digital Farmer Service is now an innovative agricultural value chain digitization service that leverages mobile and web technologies to connect critical and tangible services to Small Holder Farmers (SHFs). This is done through a network of field agents across farming communities. The agents equipped with tablets running Esoko technologies are the conduits for providing critical services to thousands of smallholders. These critical services include credit to finance agricultural operations, insurance to increase farmer resilience to emerging threats and economic stressors, input subsidy programs and access to input and output markets as well as innovative micro pension schemes. The service creates an ecosystem and an economy around the agents comprising of key value chain actors such as input providers, mechanization service providers, financial institutions and grain off-takers. All transactions within the agricultural value chain are recorded and digitized using smart cards enabled by Esoko mobile money wallet and Visa, the global payment provider, helping the farmer build a history of transactions which could be used by third parties such as financial institutions to assess and provide loans to these farmers.
About Esoko
Esoko has been helping enterprises manage rural communities since 2008. Traditionally focused on content services to farmers, the platform now provides powerful data collection & digitization tools, biometric profiling, analytics, as well as communication services. And we have just introduced additional services like digital credit, insurance, payments and transaction services. These services are now delivered in two pathways (1) Data collection and profiling and (2) Service delivery
So if you’re looking to profile or register people, digitize agric supply chains & social protection programs, conduct GIS mapping, or to track inventory or impact, or if you want to engage communities with critical information campaigns like healthcare, agronomic advisories, climate smart contents, weather, nutrition or market information, Esoko’s the way to go!
