This week we are publishing a number of evaluation reports on mFarmer services: the mKisan service by Handygo in India; the Airtel Kilimo service in Kenya and Orange’s Sènèkèla service in Mali. GSMA mAgri have provided grants and consultancy support for the set-up and launch of all of these Agri VAS which had various levels of success in their respective markets.

As a part of the ongoing support, GSMA has been providing business intelligence around the uptake of each of those products. Business intelligence uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative data available on the service to identify and explain key bottlenecks to user adoption. We are using raw usage logs from the service, results of phone surveys and interviews with users in order to: segment the user base according to the behavior patterns, formulate a set of hypothesis and validate them, identify problems and provide recommendations to the service owners.

Key insights from the recent Kisan evaluation

1. Voice channels for agri advisory should have a dedicated emergency option on the main menu for pests and diseases, potentially redirecting the users to a helpline.
   Users who tried IVR but never called back were often in an emergency situation on their farm – with little or no access to alternative sources of information. When those users were not able solve their problems after experiencing lengthy voice menus, they felt the service didn’t have any value for them. 
2. Education on the value of the service and its full functionality is key for facilitating service adoption.
   Users who subscribe to the push content very often do so out of curiosity, without any pressing or emergency needs, and they are also likely to have access to alternative sources of agricultural information. One of the ways for converting them into more active users would be by demonstrating different features and types of content available on the service. This could be via live demonstrations or customised messaging featuring content found via IVR.

Key insights from the recent Airtel Kilimo evaluation

– The pricing model needs to be designed around small-holder farmers’ ability to pay.
Regular pay as you go charged push content results in low adoption rates, as users are concerned about not having control over their airtime balance. Freemium might be a better pricing model for Agri VAS, where push messages are sent for free, while pull content is charged based on usage (e.g. IKSL Green SIM service sends free push messages and charges for calls to the helpline).

– Adding content on cash crops increases value proposition of Agri VAS.
By adding content on cash crops, service becomes attractive to high value users – i.e. young entrepreneurial farmers who are eager to learn new practices and try new crops.

Key insights from recent Orange Sènèkèla evaluation

1. Women farmers are more likely to become regular users of the Agri VAS if it meets their information needs.
   While women account for only 25% of repeat users of the Sènèkèla helpline, they generate almost 50% of all calls made by this segment. Marketing to women farmers would allow the service provider to build a loyal customer base.
2. A subsidised trial use or a freemium model would allow customers to experience information available before making an investment and paying for the service. Although the call rates (0.10 USD per minute) are half of the regular network rate, users still need to understand the value before making a decision to pay.

Full results of quantitative and qualitative evaluation are available in the reports. We encourage all service providers that run, or plan to launch, an Agri VAS service to become familiar with the challenges for service adoption and uptake. Many of these recommendations would be applicable across markets.

As always, we welcome your feedback on our insights, resources and methodology.