Farmers' Club: Empowering farmers through technology
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?
Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?
Team
Vodafone Turkey
3300
Okay
Guntekin
Mass Social Buss Models Segm.Assoc.Mngr. Postpaid Segment Management
Turkey
2009
, XX, 81 cities, 12.000 villages all over Turkey
N/A
New products & services: Entries in this category develop and offer essentials product and services that address needs currently unmet, Inclusive supply chains: Entries in this category implement efficient, sustainable and inclusive supply chains.
The Farmers’ Club won two silver Mercury Awards in New York 2012, Mediacat Felis Awards Year's Best Media Utilization Award 2013
-Partner 1
Agricultural Marketing Ltd; Generating substance for Agriculture and Stockbreeding and especially techonolgy supported data spreading.
Tarımsalpazarlama.com - Applying agricultural projects about Agricultural Marketing and News website, SMS wire service, M2M communication system. Publishing agriculture related visual and published broadcast .
Motivation
The vision of the organisation is to that all of Turkey's 3 million farmers to fully and actively participate in the economy and society. Through this co-creation project we are creating the infrastructure and sustainable resources required to achieve this mission.
Contributions
Tarimsal Pazarlama, with our extensive networks of farmers in deep knowledge regarding their lives and behaviours, is responsible for the direct management of the project, preparation of appropriate content, direct communication with farmers and ensuring it reaches those who are in need of the information. We are also preparation of educational content for truck and planning which villages to visit and are responsible for the reporting of the project.
-Partner 2
Business
Vodafone : Turkey's second largest mobile operator.
Motivation
Vodafone have gained a fresh and loyal customer segment in rural areas by getting ahead of their competitors. They have ensured the trust of the farmers by supplying infrastructure and financial support. They have increased customers in this sector (from 17% to 68% as a direct result of the project).
Contribution
Vodafone create and update the software needed for the SMS and application services and co-create these with tarimsal pazarlama according to the farmer's needs. They increase the reach of the programme by creating PR campaigns and advertising which have appeared in countless national and international newspapers and television programmes (including The Guardian, Daily Telegraph). They also provide the truck for the educational roadshow and supplying the needed financial support to apply the project.
The Vodafone Farmers’ Club service in Turkey uses mobile technology to give farmers the information they need to improve their harvests and livelihoods. We reach 1 .2 million farmers and their families via SMS. So far 250,000 farmers have found new clients for their products. Around 300 million SMS alerts were sent to farmers in 2012/13 and an ‘education truck’ touring Turkish communities helped to improve 25,000 farmers’ knowledge about the benefits of using their mobile to access information to improve their harvests. This has improved Turkish farmers’ productivity by an estimated €190 million in 2012/13 alone. Farmers now have higher quality and higher value products. This has also had a key role in slowing down the rapid rural to urban migration as farmers whose products have gained value have given up thoughts of moving to cities and started to benefit from their environments.
Businesses, Other.
The project has reached its financial sustainability goal. Farmers pay $1 for this technological service and as it is sustained and more farmers join up it grows. Through continually innovating and providing new solutions to agricultural programmes and new content and applications we will also keep our current customers.
Therefore, the project finances itself through this system. Moreover, Vodafone must sustain the solution in order to keep their market share of rural farmers (currently at 68%). Our profits are reinvested in other programmes for example 'farmers credit card', 'technovillage' and 'farmer's computer'
We continue to improve our own content and grow our team of staff.
Since 2004 I have been personally struggling to solve the problems of farmers (previously outlined) originally the idea was to fix it using internet based solutions. However, farmers lack of access and knowledge made this impossible.Then we realised that the easiest way to reach the farmers is to use cell-phones and that mobile phone operators have a crucial role at this point and that the success of the project depended on a successful co-creation collaboration with a mobile network. When Vodafone realised they could tap into a totally previously unexploited segment of the market they accepted our proposal and we started to build a strategy together.
As this was Vodafone's first venture into the agriculture field they have been very receptive of our ideas and implementation model. One barrier was that in Turkey there is no official legal entity for social businesses so at the beginning Vodafone had some difficulties understanding exactly what our status was and how to communicate that as part of their CSR. As we worked together and saw the potential of the collaboration this was overcome without any issues.
There is an annually renewed contractual relationship between Vodafone and Tarimsal Pazarlama.
We have discovered a way to deliver a project for bigger masses by working together with Vodafone and by making this alliance. We have understood that building the capacity and knowledge of our partner is as important as financial support .In our social businesses we have realised that instead of short-term sponsorships by building management features in institutional firms we can make our support more and more lasting and we have started to implement all projects in this way.
Vodafone has discovered a market it had never realised before and has now expanded to include 26 new countries. As a direct result of this project Vodafone Turkey has created new departments which are The Farmer Segment Department and Social Business Department. Furthermore, they are now producing new projects around women's empowerment using a similar model.
Through Ashoka