Supporting Punjabi Farmers: An
Exploratory Study.
Akram, Durrani, Riaz, Qasim and Shahid
School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE)
Lahore University of Management Sciences
Lahore, Pakistan
{16100206, 16100201, 16100249, 15030029,
suleman.shahid}@lums.edu.pk
*Tilburg center for Cognition and Communication
Department of information and Communication Sciences
Tilburg University, The Netherlands
s.shahid@uvt.nl
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CHI 2014, Apr 26 - May 01 2014, Toronto, ON, Canada
ACM 978-1-4503-2474-8/14/04.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2559206.2581179
.
Abstract
This study is to identify core issues of farmers of
Central Punjab. Our basic focus is to identify major
causes which reduce their crops production. Afterwards,
a systematic solution for the identified problems was
devised for the famers based on user research findings
and an application is developed which addresses the
crop related problems. An evaluation testing suggested
that this system is likely to be adapted by the farming
community of Punjab.
Author Keywords
Punjab; Farmers; ICT intervention; Pakistan
ACM Classification Keywords
H.5.2 [User interfaces]: prototyping,
evaluation/methodology.
Introduction
Despite Pakistan being a predominantly agrarian which
shares a major input to the country’s GDP but still
Pakistan is far behind its neighboring countries in terms
of per acre yield [1]. For the past few years,
Agricultural sector throughout the world has undergone
significant improvement owing to the incorporation of
technology with agriculture. With the availability of real
time information about best farming practices, farmers
can make better decisions and adopt methods that are
best suited for the enhanced productivity of their crops.
However in Pakistan, no prior work has been done for
the integration of technology with agriculture sector
and traditional means of information dissemination are
still prevalent. The current methods for information
retrieval by farmers are either through radio and
television or in a word of mouth fashion by fellow
farmers and retailers [3]. In the current era of science
and technology, these methods have a limited scope
[1] and suffer the problem of unreliability in case
information is attained through peers or retailers. As a
result farmers follow traditional methods of farming and
no new efforts are introduced in the conventional
procedures to increase productivity of their crops. In
short, technology has not yet been adapted in the
agricultural sector of Pakistan therefore a thorough
research needs to be carried out to identify farming
requirements of farmers that are critical for enhanced
crop yield and to utilize technological resources for
provision of information that addresses such
requirements.
Conversely, researches have been conducted in
different countries for the intervention of Information
and Communication Technology (ICT) in agricultural
sector to improve the farming standards and enhanced
productivity. E-Choupal is one such example where with
the mediation of ICT the farmer is being provided with
real-time information and customized knowledge to
improve his decision making ability [4]. Awaaj Otalo, a
voice based application for small scale farmers, has
also been keenly adopted by the farmers as no prior
technical knowledge is required [5]. Such systems can
significantly improve the dissemination of information
in agricultural area in the developing world.
User Research
The goal of user research phase was to identify the
core information requirements of the farming
community and to determine the usage of ICT as a
medium to transmit such information. Our main focus is
on farmer’s core problems and to identify major causes
which reduces their crop production.
Participants and Procedure
In Pakistan there are a total of 5.07 million farms while
in the rural areas of Punjab there are nearly 3.86
million farms with a total farm area of 27.83 million
acres which constitute about 76 percent of total farms
in Pakistan [7]. We chose central Punjab (Faisalabad
District) to conduct the interviews as this region has a
large belt of cultivable land including crops such as
wheat, cotton, rice, sugarcane etc. The participants
chosen had a minimum of 5 years of agricultural
experience and had to be a thekay-daar (farmer who
heads the land and has the decision making power).
Due to their experience, these participants could rightly
point out the problems or information requirements.
Thirteen farmers were voluntarily interviewed
individually in their farms as physical context is
mattered a lot for getting more appropriate information
[8]. The interviews consisted of open ended questions
to engage the farmers in discussions. Such semi-
structured interviews give insights into an issue from
the perspective of the end-user [9] and additional
questions emerge out of the discussion [10]. Three of
the farmers interviewed were illiterate, three were
semi-literate and the remaining claimed to read Urdu
quite comfortably.
User Research Findings
All interviews were recorded and later reviewed for
qualitative analysis. Following are the major findings of
the interviews:
Weather Uncertainty
The interviews indicate that farmers face the problem
of weather uncertainty during whole farming cycle
especially in sowing and harvesting phase. The farmers
pointed out that weather uncertainty can be adverse to
the production of their crops e.g. “The rainfall should
not occur at least one week after sowing the seeds of
wheat” (P #3, 5). For sugarcane heavy rainfall was said
to be harmful as “It can damage the roots of sugarcane
and as a result its growth is stunted” (P #8). The
farmers claimed that if they know of the forecast
beforehand they can irrigate their crops accordingly.
Unreliable Pesticide, Fertilizer and Seed Information
System
One of the problems faced by farmers includes the
limited pesticide information. Many famers pointed out
that when their crop is facing pests attack, they have to
rely on the dealers in the market for pesticides because
they don’t know what remedies to apply for certain
pests. “We cannot claim any damages to our crops due
to ineffective or wrong pesticide provided by the
retailer” (P#9). There is no standardized information
available to them, by either the government or any
other authorized personnel. As a result, the farmers are
heavily dependent on the local market dealer who may
or may not provide them the right pesticide. This result
is in accordance to the studies conducted in [3] which
indicate that farmers are sometimes abused by retailers
who can give them fake sprays that can spoil their
crops.
Similarly, the information regarding fertilizers is also
not only scarce but during the sowing season, some
dealers often reduce the fertilizer availability so as to
sell it in the black market at higher rates. Like fertilizer
information, farmers heavily rely on market dealer to
give some better seed. They do not know which seed is
more suitable for their soils. Hence, many of the
farmers require information regarding the usage, prices
and the location of purchase outlets of the fertilizers
and seeds.
Canal Scheduling System
The ground water is salty in the rural areas of the
Faisalabad district, as a result of which irrigation is
highly dependent on the canal system. The canal
(Upper Bari Doab) is closed for a month each year, but
often the schedule is changed and the canal is closed
for a longer period of time. No credible mechanism to
disseminate changes in the schedule is in place for the
farmers.
Current Information Sources and Technological
standing
The current sources of information is mainly either
radio, television, retailers or through peers. They argue
that television and radio doesn’t provide them with
timely and dedicated agro-information. Retailers are
arguably biased towards greater margins. Farmers
often seek advice from their peers and follow suit if one
of them is successful.
Three farmers owned a mobile phone and three
exceptions had the basic knowledge of the phone but
used it infrequently (for calls). Some of them even had
smart phones and were decently acquainted with touch
interfaces. Generally, they preferred a visual system
with audio feedback which could disseminate the
required information. They favored images/visual aid to
get information instead of solely an audio system.
General Findings
At-least four participants complained about the market
rates of their crops. They fretted about the low return
on their investment. Some even argued that their
expenditures were greater than the revenue due to
poor yield and low rates of crops by the monopolistic
industries.
Two participants seemed to have no confidence in such
an ICT intervention and thought that the only way to
improve their livelihood was to increase the market
rates of the crops.
Conclusion and Future work
In this paper we have aimed at identification of core
requirements of Punjabi farmers that are critical for
improved production of their crops. Afterwards, a
systematic solution was devised to address such
requirements and dissemination of real time
information to famers through a simple and
minimalistic design. The solution was based on KIOSK
which incorporated simple design principles in the
language of farmers that made it easy to be utilized. An
evaluation testing was carried out and based on the
feedback of farmers from the evaluation phase, this
system is likely to be adapted by the farming
community of Punjab. The sole purpose of our research
is to provide the farmers a platform for information
dissemination that can be used to practice better
farming methods to increase productivity and yield of
crops. As KIOSK system is cost effective, so we are also
looking for some other optimal solution i.e. IVR, USSD
support etc., which will address these problem in more
efficient way. Our work is in-line with other research
works conducted in different countries of sub-continent
especially India were the work done by E-choupal
community has similar aspects like weather forecast
and information about best farming practices.
Therefore, we seek to continue our research and extend
it to a larger platform involving stakeholders from other
countries of sub-continent. Through a collaborative
effort, better and generalized solutions can be built for
the farming community of not only Pakistan but other
countries as well since a large portion of farming
requirements found in the user research phase overlap
with those of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
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