2017 ICT4D Conference

The GSMA mAgri Programme forges partnerships between mobile operators, technology providers and agricultural organisations. We support scalable commercial mobile services that impact smallholder farmers and the agricultural industry at large. Our mission is to advance the productivity and profitability of smallholder farmers and the agricultural industry at large through scalable and commercial mobile services.

Over the last few years GSMA has been working with six mobile operators to support the launch and scale of agricultural value-added services (Agri VAS). In just over two years, leveraging findings from user experience (UX) design, business intelligence (BI), and customer feedback and sharing knowledge with each other, the product teams developed services that cumulatively reached more than three million registered users worldwide.



Some of the key findings to be presented include:

- The potential of Agri VAS to drive behaviour change is proven by power users reporting significantly more on-farm changes than comparable non-users (e.g. planting, land management, harvesting) – over one million users are estimated to have made changes globally.

- Dedication to UX, drawing on customer feedback and behavioural data from BI, ensured high acquisitions and user engagement. The six Agri VAS services reached three million registered users worldwide, almost 60% of whom were active in December 2016 due to iterative and user-centric approach to product evolution.

- Successful services require holistic product team structure - a core team of dedicated staff, as well as cross functional links into other departments (marketing, BI, technology, sales and distribution). A high degree of ownership from MNOs results in high activity and user engagement rates. Those who led UX research internally and empowered their team to make service design decisions based on lessons in the field are more likely to get foundational issues, like design and requirement specifications, right.

This session will also explore the trends and role of digital in agriculture beyond extension