Supporting Farmers Digitally:
How to deliver agricultural extension services to farmers in Ethiopia during COVID-19
Extension services, or the delivery of information and agricultural inputs to farmers, is critical to helping smallholder farmers improve productivity. However, with COVID-19 limiting the movement of people and goods, the agribusiness industry is having to rethink how these services are delivered.
This webinar explored digital tools that can provide extension services to farmers, how stakeholders can promote and adopt these tools, and how policymakers can encourage the development and use of digital extension services as a long-term approach to supporting farmers.
COVID-19 is negatively impacting the agribusiness sector, causing delays in the distribution of agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and seeds, disruption to farmer extension services, a shortage of labor for harvesting, and difficulties in bringing agricultural products to the market.
Extension services in Ethiopia traditionally include organizing on-site demonstrations at farms, farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing, in-person meetings and input deliveries. All of that has been affected.
Digital tools are one solution many organizations are using in Ethiopia to experiment with virtual extension services to small holder farmers to help farmers with good production practices, timely reporting of cases, information on production risks and mitigation plans and pricing updates.
The increasing penetration of mobile networks as well as availability of mobile phones and their facilities in the country paves way for the provision of agricultural extension services, market information and financial services (e.g. mobile banking).