Can Personalized Digital Solutions Improve Smallholder Farmer Outcomes in Ghana?

Finding the right partners and places to ask questions is paramount to understanding the drivers of agricultural transformation. To facilitate opportunities for researchers and partners to develop trust and scope early-stage evaluation questions, DAISI funds small proposal development grants to support very preliminary, exploratory research activities, including researcher travel. This proposal development grant explored research themes related to provision of market information and microfinance to farmers under the cross-cutting theme of gender.

With this proposal development grant, researchers conducted focus groups with small-scale farmers in four regions of Ghana to explore their perceptions of digital farmer services. Additionally, researchers explored a partnership with Farmerline, a start-up that offers a digital advisory tool which provides weather and market information, financial services, and access to inputs for small-scale farmers in Ghana.

The focus group discussions in four regions revealed that about half of farmers, mainly urban farmers, were aware of digital bundled services and viewed them as tools for market prices, weather, and best practices. There was strong interest in more comprehensive, needs-based apps, with particular emphasis on local language content and gender sensitivity. Key barriers to utilization of such platforms included limited smartphone access and data expenses. The researchers are exploring further A/B tests and a full-scale study with Farmerline.