The number of mAgri services, initiatives, projects, apps, businesses and products is growing by the day. We’ve mapped 100 products and services that are using mobile technology in the agriculture sector across the developing world. We know there are plenty more that still need to be added to our tacker so if you know of any, please let us know!
As more people get involved in this exciting area and test new ways that mobile can bring benefits to the agriculture sector, there are more and more important lessons that we need to share with each other. The GSMA mAgri Programme does this via our blog and by creating toolkits and guidelines that include the lessons we’re learning along the way and some of what we see as best practice in the industry.
Below is an overview of some of the tools we’ve recently developed for people who are designing or rolling out a service that delivers information to farmers via their mobile. These are “working documents” and are being continuously updated as we learn more. Please get in touch if you’d like us to send any of these to you via email and if you have other resources that would be useful for the industry, we’d love to hear about them.
If you’re new to Agricultural Value Added Services (Agri VAS), we recommend you read the GSMA Agri VAS Market Entry Toolkit first.
Guidelines for Creating Agri VAS Content
This document is a guide for Agri VAS providers in creating valuable and impactful agricultural content suitable for delivery through mobile channels. Smallholder farmers are the priority customer for these types of information services. This document sets out to guide the reader to first understand the scale and scope of different agricultural content requirements and then lays out a step by step process to deliver on the requirements.
Agri VAS Usability Testing Guidelines
This document provides an introduction to Usability Testing and guidelines on conducting a user test for Agri VAS. It begins with an explanation of different approaches to user testing and the reasons why it is important. Step by step guidelines are provided on conducting Explorative Usability Testing and a Usability Evaluation and a sample script for a user test is also included.
Agri VAS Budget Calculation Toolkit
The purpose of this toolkit is to assist Agri VAS operators in understanding the financial requirements and implications of planning and launching an Agri VAS. The excel document contains template worksheets with line items for Planning, Content, Technical, Helpline & Marketing costs.
Functional Requirements & Best Practice: SMS & IVR
The purpose of this document is to outline the different types of services that can be delivered by an Agri VAS provider using SMS and IVR channels. This will aid Agri VAS providers in identifying the types of services to include and how to plan for different scenarios that arise. The document also contains best practices for both SMS and IVR services
Agri VAS Technical Implementation Project Plan
This document outlines core technical activities to run a VAS/Agri VAS project from conception to launch. This document will be particularly helpful for those who are going to recruit technical suppliers/vendor to deliver services.
We welcome your feedback on all our resources and suggestions on what other tools would be useful. We’ll be developing more resources in the coming months so it’s helpful to understand what is needed by the industry. Get in touch to share your thoughts- [email protected].