Climate-sensitive digital advisory system for smallholder farmers
A deepdive into Shufola and its network of users to impact agricultural productivity and develop localized agro-information entrepreneurs
By Kazi Farhana, mPower
Climate change significantly affects the productivity and livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Unpredictable weather patterns, new infestations, and the limitations of traditional farming knowledge make it increasingly difficult for smallholder farmers in Bangladesh to sustain their crops. Advisory systems have always had a positive effect on smallholder farmers — traditionally led by both public and private agricultural extension workers in the grassroots. The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) supports the largest pool of agricultural extension workers — a workforce a bit over 14,000 strong. Bangladesh has 16.5 million farmers, 85% of which are smallholders. In short, by these numbers alone, a government agricultural extension agent is expected to serve a little bit over 1,000 smallholders — a near impossible feat. To address this disparity, we created Shufola, a mobile application designed to support farmers by providing localized, climate-sensitive, and actionable advice.
Agriculture in Bangladesh: The uneasy present
The backbone of Bangladesh’s economy is agriculture, which currently provides employment for approximately 40% of its workforce and contributes to 14% of its GDP. This sector is mainly dependent on the smallholder farmers who grow a plethora of crops like rice, jute, sugarcane and varied fruit/vegetable plants etc.
While the agricultural sector carries massive significance for Bangladesh, it experiences a range of problems such as — high risks from floods and cyclones every year to unaccounted weather changes due to climate change.
Bangladesh is the 7th most vulnerable country in the world for climate change impacts and climate vulnerability has added additional layers of uncertainties to traditional farming operations. The map on the left from Bloomberg illustrates the degree of climate vulnerability experienced by Bangladesh. This vulnerability is only expected to intensify over the years.
Climate-adaptive agricultural technologies, such as resilient crop genus, environment-friendly or organic pesticides, and integrated water management practices can help smallholder farmers to stave off climate impact to a degree but the problem lies in covering the enormous population of smallholders with a small and resource-strained workforce.
Heatwaves, floods, torrential rains, and its impacts such as salinisation of farmlands, floods, advent of new pests and crop diseases, landslides, and erosion has a cataclysmic impact on farmers in the grassroots.
The role of Shufola in adaptive, weather-based advisory
Shufola combines localized weather forecasts with crop management practices to provide actionable advice. This flow ensures that farmers receive precise, real-time information tailored to their specific needs in simple language that are easy to decipher and apply. To realize scale, this advisory can be sent in bulk to affected farmers in specific areas.
Shufola App Layout
For example, if Gazipur is experiencing heavy rainfall today, only the farmers whose crops will be affected by this rainfall will receive advice tailored to their specific crop type and maturity-stage. To realize scale, this advisory can be sent in bulk to affected farmers in specific areas through either SMS or voice messages.
Want to know more about weather advisory? Book a consultation with one of the expert minds of Shufola!
Preparing Farmers for Climate Change
To-date, Shufola accumulated approximately 13,442 users and application downloads, all from the grassroots. Advisory count depends on season and partnership, but on average the users get 12 management and 6 weather-based advisories. When launching the system, we initially expected resistance to adopt a digital solution in the grassroots, which is often the case in areas of low digital literacy. However, the number and continued usage of Shufola as a decision-aid suggests otherwise.
The Agricultural Achievements with the Adoption of Shufola’s Services
The service, now boasting 13,000 B2C users and 110,000+ B2B users, has been recommended by 95% of its users to other farmers. Shufola has received an average service rating of 4.3 out of 5, with 90% of users confirming they have received messages from the service either in text or voice message form, or both. Later, Shufola introduced interactive voice calls as an option based on feedback from users. This decision was influenced by a baseline study which revealed that only 56% of users were able to open and read text messages, highlighting the need for more accessible communication methods.
When it comes to the adoption of the service, more than half of the respondents believed that SHUFOLA’s suggestions were generally well-aligned with local weather conditions. During the pilot period, 75% of respondents applied at least one advisory service from SHUFOLA during mung bean cultivation. The most adopted services were weather forecasts (58%) and pesticide applications (58%), followed by land preparation (36%) and fertilizer application (11%).
Regarding impact, 74% of respondents reported benefiting from Shufola’s advisory services, particularly by protecting their crops from damage through timely weather updates. Overall, participants believed that the advice on pesticide and fertilizer application, weather forecasts, and updated sowing techniques helped them achieve better yields in the 2022 harvest. They reported an average yield of around 0.84 metric tons per hectare (mt/ha), representing a 17% increase compared to the previous year.
User Cases
This is Mr. Nazrul Islam who is a farmer. Living in Charbaria union, Barisal Sadar Upazila. He cultivated T-Aman every year, but he was unaware of the proper cultivation processes and the correct timing for applying pesticides and fertilizer. Previously, he simply sowed the seeds and harvested the rice once it matured, resulting in very low production. Now, thanks to mPower Agri’s timely SMS and voice call updates, he has gained extensive knowledge about T-Aman cultivation, leading to improved practices and better yields.
Final Thoughts
Agriculture accounts for nearly 14% of Bangladesh’s economy, and 40% to the total labor force, making it crucial to support and provide services for the farmers who sustain this vital sector. The fluctuating and unpredictable climate challenges necessitate proactive measures from both the government and private companies. Failing to address these issues will not only jeopardize our access to essential agricultural products but also significantly harm Bangladesh’s economy.
So, let us stand with all the farmers out there and support their efforts to overcome these challenges.
