Farmers Call Center

Small-scale farmers suffer from large information gaps in the field. For example, farmers may not have access to information on how to respond to new pests and diseases or do not know which local market is offering the best price for their product. They may not have access to impartial data sources such as government extension agent. This limited access to information results in lower production, higher input costs, misuse of chemicals, and lower profitability.

Food security can only be attained if farmers are equipped with the necessary knowledge. That makes a Farmers Call Centre an urgent necessity, to provide the growers with best possible advise on any aspect of farming to improve production, linking them to agricultural services like financial/credit and insurance services, genuine agro-inputs suppliers etc. This will help millions of smallholder farmers get out of poverty through improved productivity.

Agricultural productivity/yields continue to decline on the continent, despite tremendous progress in agricultural and land management technologies, yet nearly 80% of the African population live in rural areas and subsist on agriculture, largely on smallholder production.

With the highest potential for agricultural production in the world, Africa is still unable to produce enough to feed its ever increasing population. Africa is still suffering from food insecurity, malnutrition, poverty etc. On top of that, African agriculture is further challenged by adverse effects of climate change deepening the existing problems. 

Limited use of existing proven agricultural technologies, knowledge and skills at the grassroots levels are the major causes of low agricultural productivity.  Thus, to improve the situation there is a strong need for enhanced and consistent transfer of improved agricultural and climate technologies, knowledge and skills to grass root levels where they will be translated into practice to increase productivity. 

To achieve the stated goal above, there is need to capitalize on fast developing ICT technologies such as mobile phones which are becoming high valued communication channels both for extension workers and farmers for efficient and fast transfer of agriculture and climate technologies, information, knowledge etc. 

We are working with mostly rural farmers especially women who comprise more than 70% of the farming population , who find it hard to access agricultural information timely; information ranging from legitimate seeds, pesticides and fertilizers, to weather forecast, market prices, credit and insurance services etc. 

Challenges that keep millions of smallholder farmers in poverty stem from a lack of access to market information, technical knowledge, inputs, financing and accessible markets, where they can sell their products. 

This implies that relaying information is vital. With the use of mobile technologies, this information is being made available at the convenience of the farmer on the go.

We are also linking the farmers to agriculture services, and sensitizing them to form farmers groups, such that they can do collective marketing to have a higher bargaining power, in order to increase their profits. Through their associations, we are linking them to favorable markets and financial/credit institutions that can provide credit. 

The agriculture call center is one of the most obvious means of providing information. It allows for farmers to call in and ask specific questions about agriculture practices. This provides an important service because farmers prefer to speak directly with an agriculture expert versus IVRs or SMS, according to research we carried out during our feasibility study. 

The Farmers Call Center can also be cost effective, compared to the traditional ways of information dissemination to farmers like using extension workers or other technologies that have even proved ineffective to the farmers; most of the call center processes can be automated using virtual agents technology, like IBM Watson Assistant, or through Interactive Voice Recordings, IVR, etc reducing on the operation costs yet ensuring timely access to relevant information by the farmers.  

The call coming to the call center from a farmer through a toll free line, is picked up by a Farmer Tele Advisor (FTA) who after a short welcome message takes down the basic information and the queries of the caller. These details are fed into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system by the FTA himself. The FTA also feeds into the system questions being asked by the farmer and the answer given.

The FTA refers to the Farmers Portal (Knowledge Database) that we have developed, or any other reliable website elsewhere to answer queries from the farmer. 

The FTA is an Agricultural graduate with rural background, fluent in English and a local language, possessing good communication skills. They are in position to answer majority of questions likely to be asked by the farmers.

We developed a web based portal, Farmers Knowledge Management System (FKMS), an application software to maintain the queries and their answers being provided by the FTA. The portal is the knowledge database of the call center, and is linked to different knowledge and weather related databases around the world.

Every call is entered in relevant module of FKMS with details of farmers, query of the farmer and answer provided to him.

We undertake data analytics, applying Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools on FKMS data for real time monitoring of key issues/problems and to generate alerts in case of anything unusual happening. We also do predictive analysis on the collected data to inform farmers on future occurrences such that they can prepare in advance. 

Cabral Tech Ltd is a technology driven company, attracting the best software and agriculture talents. Our approach to the call center is technology based, and we are working on a number of innovative tools, to be integrated in the call center, to provide customized area specific solutions to farmers across the country, this implies applying Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to analyze the data collected from the farmers, through voice, SMS and USSD then be able to customize solutions for farmers in each areas. 

We are also applying Machine Learning to analyze weather data and history, to be able to do data analytics, in order to predict weather trends in the future, so we can always inform farmers in advance to prepare for such changes. 

Data Analytics using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will also help us predict market price fluctuation trends, pest incursion possibilities, and inform farmers so they can prepare accordingly. 

We are also building virtual agent technology, using AI and ML, in order to be able to serve hundreds of thousands of farmers efficiently and timely, and these virtual agents working together with humans, will ensure farmers get the right information in the right time. 

Call centers require the integration of several different technologies to maximize the use of information and to streamline the activities of call center operators.

At our call center, we are applying hardware systems like the IPBX System which handles calls from the telecom service providers and route the same to an available FTA. The system has the capability of Call Holding and Call Conferencing/Forwarding facilities within and outside the call center. 

We also developed an in-house Interactive Voice Response, an automated system that presents different menus and uses pre-recorded responses to guide the caller/farmer towards the information they are searching for. Through it , we create our own greetings, menu options, and routing procedures to hand the farmer over to the right FTA quickly and easily. 

We are using Machine Learning Algorithms in data analytics, to generate actionable insights from thousands of calls and data we collect from farmers; this helps us in predictive analysis to predict future occurrences be it weather changes, market price fluctuations, possible pest incursion in a specific area etc, and inform farmers in advance to prepare themselves, or inform different stakeholders for possible intervention.

We are building Artificial Intelligence Software that can listen to farmers calls and decipher their impact on the farmer, such as how the issue was resolved, whether the farmers loyalty will increase in the future as a result of the call, and what could have been done to smoothen the situation if the caller farmer gets upset.  

Limited access to information has led to an information gap hence farmers practice poor planning and farming resulting into reduced revenue for both farmers and the government and environmental degradation. 

Extension officers have a limited reach to the farmers due to their few numbers. Extension officers have inadequate resources, insufficient communication capacity, and sometimes limited knowledge and skills, they are also affected by poor infrastructure and farmers lack of basic farm resources. 

Other sources of information are expensive, and some require internet accessibility, yet in many villages in Uganda and Africa in general, internet connectivity is still a big challenge. 

That leaves the call center, where farmers call on a toll free line, and ask any agriculture related question from a team of experts, the most feasible and affordable source of information for millions of farmers, because its free, and available on the go to the farmer. 

According to the research from USAID's Feed The Future (2015), on Agricultural Call Centers, it was discovered through interviewing hundreds of farmers, that majority , over 84% prefer calling and talking to experts than through SMS, or other forms of information gathering. 

From our own experience and data, we receive hundreds of calls from farmers everyday, asking about mainly market prices, loans, weather forecast, and crop diseases'; and this is improving their farm enterprises, and transforming their lives. 

Currently the Farmers Call Center serves 5,450 farmers on average per month. Majority of these are from rural areas, constituting over 85%, of which over 65% are women. The most asked questions are about weather information, crop diseases, agricultural loans and market prices, with biggest percentage asking about crop diseases and market prices. 

In the next one year, we plan to expand our team of agronomists (Farmer Tele Advisors), and also the software engineering team, on addition to acquiring more equipments to ensure we can serve 30,000 farmers per month, or 360,000 farmers annually 

In the next five years, we plan to scale up to Kenya and Tanzania, with target of serving 300,000  farmers per month from the three countries, or 3.6 million farmers annually. 

Within the next year, our focus is to strengthen our support team, enrich our knowledge data-bank, bring more stakeholders on board through collaborations and partnerships, recruit more agronomists to ensure we serve more farmers with an estimated number of 30,000 farmers per month, and strengthen our software engineering team to build more tools that can automate most of the operations, in order to reduce call time, and improve on efficiency. 

In the next five years, we plan to engage more in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Research and Development, such that we do advanced data analytics, and also concentrate more on building call center virtual agents using AL to be able to handle thousands of farmers per day. 

We also plan to take advantage of the network of farmers we would have built to release more cutting edge technology products, to digitize the agriculture industry, ranging from digital banking, to digital markets

With an expanded team of agronomists and software engineers, together with the call center virtual agents, and automated systems, we shall be able to reach our estimated minimum number of 300,000 farmers per month in the three East African countries. 

We also plan in the next five years to collaborate with different institutions to do more Research and Development in agriculture, especially Crop Science and Animal Production, in order to enrich our knowledge data bank in order to become the ultimate destination of agriculture knowledge . 

At the moment our biggest obstacle is financial, because its limiting how far we can expand, because our expansion plan means recruiting more agronomists and software engineers, strengthen the marketing team to carry out massive sensitization campaigns to be able to reach the last mile farmer deep in the village. With more resources we can expand and be able to scale up as planned.

Another obstacle we have is the fact that Uganda is multilingual, with over 50 languages, and a big percentage of the population not able to speak and understand English, meaning if we are to serve all farmers, we must have call center agents who can speak fluently and understand the major local languages in Uganda; this implies more financial resources needed to recruit these in order to increase the number of farmers being served. Though on the other hand, we shall not face the same obstacle in Kenya and Tanzania, because for they have a uniting language Kiswahili, spoken and understood by almost everyone in those countries. 

There is also another obstacle of high charges from telecom companies providing us with the network, especially due to the fact that we take on the cost of the call, allowing the farmer to access the service for free, and due to the fact that some farmer problems need detailed explanation, this in some measure becomes a big obstacle. 

Since most of the obstacles we may face in extending the services to millions of farmers and ensuring efficiency in the process are rotating around finance, we have put in place strategies to address such. 

We plan to widen our revenue sources such that we can have formidable cash flow, and be able to execute our plans, and in the next one year, we are looking at target annual revenue of $1,000,000, based on the business model we have come up with, and also the marketing strategies we have put in place. With that revenue, we shall be able to expand our teams, strengthen our Research and Development ambitions, and be able to reach millions of farmers every year.

We also plan to raise more funds through venture equity investment and grants to add on our cash base, to be able to execute our plans. 

We are a team of 21 people, all full time, with the following qualifications. 

We currently have 9 full-time software engineers, who are all graduates of Software Engineering

We also have 7 full time agronomists (Farmer Tele Advisors), who are graduates of Agriculture and Rural Innovations

We are two Co-Founders, me with a degree in Chemical Engineering, and another with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. 

We also have 1 full time technician, who works on our networks.

We have 2 full time marketing managers, with diplomas in Marketing

I am convinced that we are more positioned to deliver this solution because of our expertise in the different fields necessarily to run the call center

Me and my other Co-founder are farmers by practice; after graduating in 2005, we decided to engage in agriculture and also sensitize farmers on the best practices of modern agriculture; we engaged in vegetable growing and rabbit farming; and we built the biggest rabbit farm in Uganda, and also built a network of rabbit farmers across the country; it was during our community mobilization campaigns towards agriculture that we identified a very big information gap in the agriculture industry especially in rural communities, and yet the mechanisms put in place by government and other agencies were inefficient. So that experience in dealing with farmers, and the understanding of the challenges in the agriculture industry, makes us best positioned to deliver a solution of this nature. 

We have also put together a team of brilliant software engineers, who are dedicated to build software tools, and engage in research in areas of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to build a high tech modern call center to serve millions of farmers.

Our agronomists are also well trained, with background in rural agricultural extension services, dealing with farmers in communities, hence best positioned to work as Farmer Tele Advisors 

We are currently working with Bukoola Chemicals Ltd, the leading distributors of agrochemicals and other agrio-inputs in East Africa. We provide Bukoola with customer services to its farmers. For example, if the farmer buys fertilizers from Bukoola, and he has an inquiry about the application procedures, he calls on our toll free line, and we provide that service on behalf of Bukoola. And so far we have had a cordial partnership with them. 

We are working with Musa Body, the leading manufacturers and distributors of Agriculture Machines; and we also provide technical support to the farmers who buy their machines on behalf of Musa Body

We are also working with KENTIM UNIVERSITY, an agricultural based institution; we get expert support in case of need from them; and we are collaborating with them on different research projects in Crop Science. 

Lastly, we are also working with the department of Extension Services, in the ministry of agriculture in Uganda; collaborating on a number of projects, and also connecting their extension service provider agents to many of our farmers for physical support. 

The call center is in an excellent position to provide services for aid projects, government entities, businesses, and research institutes. These organizations can use the call center infrastructure for their own project and research needs (monitoring and evaluation, product support, push information on new programs, etc.).

One of the more strategic partnerships a call center can make is within the business community. Agricultural call centers can provide product services for tractor companies, input dealers, financial institutions etc. who offer agriculture inputs, technologies and services. These services can include information about where a farmer can buy their product; help troubleshoot issues with the product, or provide a marketing service through a call center's network of farmers. 

Therefore our business model is based on partnerships we make with different stakeholders in the agriculture industry, like banks, insurances, agro-input suppliers, agro-traders, research institutions, government agencies, NGOs etc as we act as a go-between the farmers and these agencies.

Currently we have a partnership with Bukoola Chemicals Ltd, as we provide after sales services/first level help desk on their behalf to the farmers, and also market research. 

We also have the same contract arrangement with Musa Body, the leading suppliers of small agricultural machines, as we provide technical support to farmers on their behalf, and also help them in market research. 

Currently we are generating revenue through the contract partnerships we have with Bukoola Chemicals Ltd, and Musa Body; we provide first level help desk services to their clients, who are farmers, and we do troubleshooting in case the farmer finds a technical problem in using one of their products. 

We also do market research for them, and provide them with analyzed data that shapes their business decisions. 

We are also engaging two banks, dealing in agricultural loans, such that they can take advantage of our network of farmers, to extend credit services to these farmers; and we are proposing to provide first level help desk services to the farmers on their behalf on the different services they have, and also sensitize farmers on their behalf on how to get a loan, and also in business planning skills such that they can fully utilize the loans productively to be able to pay back. 

Our mission is to provide timely and relevant information to millions of smallholder farmers around the world, starting from Uganda, scale to East African region, then cover the continent, and after be able to scale globally.  

Our ultimate vision is to contribute to global food security, through increased agricultural productivity, through empowering millions of smallholder farmers to improve their operations.

Yet for sustainability, we must build a formidable business in the process, with solid cash flow to be able to expand to different countries as we empower more farmers around the world.

To achieve the above, we shall need mentors who will guide us in our business development goals; we shall need to collaborate with different agencies in areas of research and development; we shall need investors to raise more funding to scale up, in the pursuit of our objectives, and also fixing the obstacles standing in the way of progress. 

Therefore from that perspective, we see SOLVE from a platform point of view, to help us network with potential mentors, potential investors to raise more funding to scale and fix some of the barriers that are obstacles in our operations, potential partners in the areas of research and development, especially in the areas of Crop Science, Livestock, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

We would love to partner with different organizations, both in the agriculture/food sector, and others who can help us in technology research, and also help us in business development, such that we can turn our company into a profitable venture, as we  impact millions of lives around the world. 

In the agriculture sector, we would like to partner with,

1. Food and Agriculture Organization

2. World Food Programme

3. International Fund for Agricultural Development 

4. USAID (Feed The Future)

5. The International Food Policy Research Institute

6. World Bank

7. Bayer Crop Science

8. Zoetis

9. Different Research agencies in the area of Crop Science, Livestock, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

10. Different Universities that we can collaborate with in the areas of Research and Development in line with our objectives

We would love one of the officials from the above organizations be part of our Board Of Directors

We would love to partner with the above organizations in the areas of research, and also collaboration in the fight against global hunger. 

We would also like to network with different accelerator programmes and even be part of them to be mentored in business development processes, and also other companies like Bayer Crop Science, who can be potential clients and partners in areas of crop and livestock research; and also venture firms for raising more funds to scale up the business and impact more farmers. 

Finally we would love to partner with research organizations, in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Machine Learning. 

We are working on different AI tools in order to efficiently automate inbound calls so that farmers get satisfactory results while the human agents ensure it is correctly sorting and addressing them.

We are also working on AI voice agents and chatbots that can capture a lot of granular data around each farmer interaction, which can be fed into analytics engines to help optimize the call centre process.

And therefore the AI Innovations Prize is a great opportunity for us to network and collaborate in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Technology research, to be able to optimize our processes, hence serving millions of farmers. 

Majority rural farmers in Africa and around the developing world are women, and we are also focused and passionate about improving the livelihood of women through empowering them with relevant agricultural information, to maximize agricultural productivity for income generation and food security.

We are also building a digital banking solution based on USSD system, targeting rural women, to be able to save and get credit to expand their farm operations, using our Credit Score system generated by a Machine Learning Algorithm; the women will be able to save and also buy agro-inputs on discount. And using the Call Center, they will get technical support on how best to apply fertilizers, pesticides,and also sourcing for them fair markets

So this prize will be great opportunity for us to collaborate with different companies and organizations, in areas of research, and business development, and also establish a network with potential investors, to be able to raise more funds to expand our operations and impact more women.

The fund from the prize, will also be used to expand our operations to reach the last mile rural farmer. 

We believe this prize will be a platform to establish partnerships with different organizations that we can collaborate with to empower millions of farmers around the world, through providing timely and relevant agriculture information to rural farmers especially women, who find it hard to access agriculture expert services. 

The funds raised will also help us solve some of our fundamental obstacles, to be able to scale up and reach out to more farmers; get more agents who can speak different local languages to serve more farmers in their respective local languages, invest more in research, to ensure we enrich our knowledge data bank, but also building more tools in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for automation and efficiency of the call center processes.