RiceAdvice Dissemination Final Report by: Obosi Philip

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CARI and Africa Rice Partnership:
• The Competitive African Rice Initiative (CARI) helps smallholder rice
farmers to increase their production and improve their income. This is
achieved via provision of technical support and advisory.
• CARI partnered with Africa Rice for the dissemination of RiceAdvice
technology to farmers under the CARI project.
Rice Advice was validated in dry season 2016
in four states:
• Kogi
• Niger
• Jigawa
• Kebbi
• In may 2016, the MOU was extended till early 2017 for
the dissemination of the technology to smallholder farmers in four
states. The dissemination commenced in June 2016 at the start of the
wet season.

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Trainings
Trainings were held in four states between May and June, 2016. The following
number of extension agents (service providers) were trained in each state and
given a target of 100 farmers each:
State Service Providers Target Number of Farmers
Kogi 10 1000
Niger 24 2400
Jigawa 38 3800
Kebbi 25 2500
Total 97 9700

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Class training of service providers

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Field Demonstration to service providers

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Farmers Interviewed
Service Providers in each state were given targets of 100 farmers each. Below is the number of
farmers interviewed by service providers in each state and data that has been synchronized.
State Service Providers Target Farmers
Interviewed
Data
Synchronized
Kogi 10 1000 1000 969
Niger 24 2400 2400 2155
Jigawa 38 3800 3182 3182
Kebbi 25 2500 2454 2454
Total 97 9700 9036 8760

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Gender Analysis of Farmers Interviewed
State Male Female Total
Kogi 515 485 1000
Niger 2125 275 2400
Jigawa 3002 180 3182
Kebbi 2376 78 2454
Total 8018 1018 9036
Farmers
Female
Male

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0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
kogi niger jigawa kebbi
GENDER ANALYSIS OF FARMERS INTERVIEWED
male
female
Gender Analysis of Farmers Interviewed
Male = 88.7%
Female = 11.3%

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Farmers Interviewed

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Monitoring
RiceAdvice monitoring visit was conducted twice; at flowering and at harvest. Few
farmers were randomly selected in each state for the monitoring visit and were
asked several questions about the RiceAdvice dissemination and its effectiveness.
The objectives of the exercise are as follows:
To assess the effectiveness of the RiceAdvice in the field and the overall impact on
yield and income.
To know the views and perception of the farmers about RiceAdvice

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Monitoring
Observation:
The effectiveness of RiceAdvice and the improvement in yield was very obvious on the
fields. Majority of the farmers that used RiceAdvice were seen to be harvesting about
double quantity compared to the yield in the previous season due to RiceAdvice.
Similarly, they all recorded reasonable decrease in quantity of fertilizer used.
All the farmers were very happy with the massive improvement in output and income
that RiceAdvice has brought to them and they were all eager to receive the advice in
next production season and also willing to increase their land size so as to be able to
take full advantage of the Advice.

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Monitoring
Below is a picture of a field belonging to a farmer who accepted RiceAdvice to be tested on
a part of his field and employed his own local method on the remaining part of his field.
A B
A: RiceAdvice Field B: Farmer controlled Field

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Monitoring

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Field Day
A field day was organized on Wednesday 2nd of November, 2016 in Birnin-Kebbi; this
was an event in which farmers that have used RiceAdvice innovation and service
providers were brought to demonstrate and enlighten the public of the benefit of
RiceAdvice. In attendance were Kebbi State Commissioner for Agriculture, Permanent
Secretary Min. of Agric, P.M. KARDA, Chairman RIFAN, Chairman Birnin-Kebbi LGA,
Emirate Council Birnin-Kebbi, Kebbi State T.V., Equity Radio, Leadership newspaper
and NTA Kebbi.

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Field Day

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Field Day

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Data Collection and Tablet Retrieval
Almost all data has been collected and sent by ODK. All the tablet has been
collected from the service providers.

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Success Stories
• Mr Murtala Aliyu (Male - Jega, Birnin Kebbi): Before I use to apply 4 bags
of fertilizer and I get 6 bags yield. But now with RiceAdvice, I applied 2bags
of fertilizer and I harvested 18 bags yield on the same 0.2ha farm.
• Mr. Abdullahi Mahari (Jigawa): After seeing the increase in yield in my farm
due to RiceAdvice, I am willing to pay 20,000 Naira for this service because it
is profitable to me.
• Mr. Aguda (Male - Hadejia, Jigawa): My neighbors have been asking me how
come I am having more than double quantity of their yield when we both
have the same size of land and planted the same time.
• Mrs Saha Musa (Female - Hadejia, Jigawa): Before I use to have difficulty in
buying fuel to irrigate in dry season but with the increase yield that
RiceAdvice has brought to me, I can now afford fuel and will produce all year
round.

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Story by: Mr. Ahmed Muhammad
Jega Local Governement Area, Kebbi State, Nigeria.
Farm Size: 0.3 hectares
At the beginning of the season in July, my extension agent provided advisory service
to me using RiceAdvice. RiceAdvice provided fertilizer recommendations in
quantity, time of application and type of fertilizer to apply. My extension agent has
been trained on using this application; he collected information from me on fertilizer
applications in previous seasons, farm size and yield. With this information, the
application provided recommendation for this season. This recommendation
reduced the quantity of fertilizer I use to apply and gave me a wide increase in yield.
This is my testimony:
Key Message:
• Reduced fertilizer used by half of the normal quantity
• Applied fertilizer timely to maximize use by the rice plant
• Yield increase by 66%
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
Without
RiceAdvice
With RiceAdvice
KG
Rice Advice
Quantity of
fertilizer
Yield
Success Stories

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Constraints
• Flooding in some parts of some of the states which affected field level and
destroyed crops
• Theft: A service provider was attacked by thieves. They made away with the
tablet and his personal belongings. Proof of this was provided by the
service provider.
• Two tablet developed a problem, one damaged screen and the other
condemned battery. Both will be repaired so that the data can be sent and
synchronized.

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Way Forward
• Training of CARI trainers in Kano State.
• Collaboration with Jigawa State Government to train the state extension agents to
disseminate RiceAdvice to rural farmers.
• Convincing ADPs in the states to further implement on their own small scale
without waiting for external supports.
• Demo Plots for RiceAdvice incorporated with complete CARI Good Agronomic
Practices
• Reduce the amount of data collected, only minimum data required i.e. last form 1
and last form 4.
• Need to reach out to more female farmers.
• Need for more effective coordination.
• Inclusion of RiceAdvice in GAP training material

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Way Forward
• Establish business model for RiceAdvice service delivery i.e. a business model
developed with the knowledge of farmers willingness to pay for the service and the
economic implicatiions. Such a model can be used by ADPs, private service
providers like Agricultural Graduates Association of Nigeria AGAN, Tractor Owners
Hiring facilities of Nigeria TOHFAN, Fertilizer development companies like OCP and
Indorama, millers and government institutes like National Agricultural and
Research Liaison Services NAERLS. Such a model can will help provide a fore-
knowledge of the incentives in disseminating the Advice by these service
providers.
• Adaptation of RiceAdvice to more common and affordable devices like potable
smart phones.
• Integration of RiceAdvice with other ICT tools like weather forecast, Plantix
(disease recognition capabilities)

THANK YOU!!!
Competitive African Rice Initiative in collaboration with AfricaRice is
Increasing competitiveness of domestic rice production in sub-Saharan Africa
using RiceAdvice.