2017 ICT4D Conference

Smallholder farmers are mostly slow adopters of technology. They are doubtful about development partners due to their previous experiences of being deceived by NGOs. They think, every technology is difficult and do not want to waste their precious farming time learning how to use certain technologies. Teaching rural farmers on how to use simple USSD menu is just like asking them to build Rome in a day. They are afraid of losing their monies just by dialing a simple short code if they are mobile money subscribers. They simply do not trust anything technology, they think it is the city man’s innovation to cheat.

One therefore, must be a skilled communicator to first of all, win the trust of these marginalized farmers. To win their trust, the speaker must first, establish the credibility of his organization, the speaker and the technology. Here are the few skills I have used over the last 4 years to train over 5000 small-scale farmers to adopt and benefit from Farmerline’s innovative voice messaging technology and services. 1. Be natural and show genuine passion towards the farmers. Rural farmers know true passion from fake one. They can easily feel it and detect it. Passions helps to get their attention and keep it. 2. Be Relational: Nothing gets your audience's than to mention their names during your presentation and giving them, “Hi 5s”. Interaction is a key success factor during presentations. 3. Keep your instructions simple and systematic. If you say many things at the same time, your audiences remember none. It’s about the Commander’s Intent. Don’t let them get lost; help them to connect the dots. 4. Concrete: use images and symbols to describe your ideas. Use scenarios which are familiar with them to explain your points. 5. Credibility: Quality and good details enhance the credibility of your message. Share testimonies of other farmers who have used your technology. From my experience, a testimony from a colleague farmer on technology usage on the field can increase adoption by 50%. 6. Emotional: for people to take action, they must care.