By Happy Mulolani
"For a long time, we have been capturing data of our farmers in respective camps using the manual system, which is not effective as data is prone to be lost," Extension Officer for Mumba Camp in Mungwi, Northern province, Florence Kabamba, narrates.
Another Camp Extension Officer shares this assertion for Lupososhi camp in Chipili district in Luapula province, Levy Kasanga, who believes that the old system of capturing farmers' data has been problematic as storage has often been difficult.
"This new system is better for us to utilise in data capturing, storage and retrieval. The system assures us of an organised database. We are also guaranteed that information gathered and stored is easily accessible from district to the national level," Mr Kasanga said.
These sentiments reflect extension officers under the Ministry of Agriculture who are critical frontline staff facilitating various agriculture interventions for smallholder farmers. The Extesnion are strategically positioned in camp areas in every district servicing farmers from the farming blocks. Every farming block in a district constitute a number of camps. For example, Kasama district has four farming blocks, namely; Kasama Central, Munkonge, Nkolemfumu and Mwamba farming blocks.
A Block Extension Officer oversees Camp Extension Officers who manage respective camps. Given this hierarchical structure, quarterly reports are submitted from Camp Extension Officer to Block Extension Officer, who in turn, submits to the District Agricultural Coordination office for consolidation. Once the district consolidates, they submit to the Provincial Agricultural Coordination office, which further submits to Lusaka's national headquarters. Given this system of manually sharing reports and information, the major bottleneck is having an integrated and systematic way of collecting, storing and sharing data.
This backdrop led the Enhanced Agribusiness Smallholder Promotion Programme (E-SAPP), with financial support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), to partner with Smart Zambia Institute and the University of Zambia to develop a Management Information System (MIS) and mobile application to address the information collection, storage and sharing needs.
Early this year, E-SAPP facilitated training for programme staff, Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock staff at national and provincial levels on the integrated web system. This four-day training was held at Mulungushi International Conference Centre in Lusaka.
The district staff and extension field staff, who are also main system users from Western, Southern, Eastern, Central, Muchinga, and Northern provinces, were the sole beneficiaries of the final phase of the MIS and mobile application.
Some focal provincial staff field staff and focal districts officer where E-SAPP is supporting interventions across its value chains, such as rice, small livestock, legumes and aquaculture, received tablets to help them with their work. "It is good that E-SAPP has provided district field officers in Western province with tablets and training. This will translate into efficiency in collecting information from farmers on different agricultural projects in the province," Western Province Senior Marketing Development Officer Chibimbi Chungu said.
Mr Chungu says several agricultural activities are happening in the province, like rice in Kalabo and soya beans in Nkeyema, which need data collection and reporting.
As an Extension Officer in Kalabo district, Thomas Masolo says the application will help them capture farmers' details and locate field officers as they collect data.
While Kalabo District Agricultural Information Officer Nancy Mukelabai says, the gadget has come at the right time as it will be handy in disseminating knowledge products to equip farmers and stakeholders. Ms Mukelabai says the tablets will mitigate the past challenges of sending multi-media content.
Central Province Provincial Agricultural Planner Patrick Longwani said the system was user-friendly and timely as staff will have access to gadgets enabling them to share reports on time.
Whereas, Northern Province Provincial Agricultural Planner, Henry Daka, appreciated the system, noting that it was inevitable that districts devise appropriate ways of sustaining the system after the phase-out of the programme.
Senior Technician from the Ministry of Agriculture, Nicholas Mwambazi, stated that the MIS and mobile application comprises modules like Knowledge Management, Monitoring & Evaluation, Activity Work Plan Budget Plan (AWBP) and Matching Grant Facility (MGF) modules.
Smart Zambia Institute System Developer Kasongo Mwila advised staff to use the mobile application and continue registering farmers as they progress in their agriculture activities. "The mobile application will help take stock of the number of farmers engaged in various value chains, which is useful information for planning purposes and also gives an overall picture of captured farmers," said Mr Mwila.
The development of this system is instrumental as staff can now capture data on the number of farmers or households involved in various agriculture activities in real-time. This addresses the concern of how to capture data for these farmers. Ideally, once this system is utilised effectively, the data captured will be of value as it will improve national planning.
The author works as a Principal Agricultural Information Officer at the National Agricultural Information Services(NAIS)
