Open questions:
...
What is the proposal submission format that we want to try for this project? What are the key elements? (e.g. what is the farmer group need, what would the funds be used for, how did they decide as a community for this idea, what metrics do they believe they can track, how will the asset make an impact on their community)
Can we test a video submission for this activity?
Could the video have intrinsic value for the members
Action items for week of 5/16:
Create a prototype of an application, and have the farmer group submit
DECISION: We will not move forward with the video proposal from the farmer group. We will instead ask the farmer group to take a videos throughout the process. Integrate it into the grant agreement.
Measurement (Sanjeev, Shalu, Ashu, Ronali, Waseem, Shivabrata, Amrita)
Identify baseline metrics to gather before the asset is procured (eg current production, cost of seedlings in market, proxies for farmer financial resilience, data on current loan practices and interest rates)
Create a theory of change for the project
By granting nursery infrastructure, we can: (1) aggregate new forms of data for women farmers in Orissa (2) increase financial resilience for farmers by selling seedlings and contract ongoing buyers for seedlings (3) attract new sources of capital (loans) from financial institutions. Further, the soil-less methodology will prevent crop loss.
As we launch the garden, agree with the farmer organization about the metrics to capture during the pilot (eg through a prototyping report card)
What data is shared back to farmer group that holds value (intrinsic)?
What data is collected to share with outside stakeholders?
What data needs to be validated? how?
Action items for week of 5/16:
Align on whether baseline metrics are necessary for the pilot. If so, make a plan to gather the metrics in the next 2-3 weeks
Getting the asset: What saplings do farmers want to
Using the data: How is the growth / quality of saplings
Users of the data: What are banks / input providers /
Long term impact metrics: Resilience, nutrition, sales / income generated
Looking at the questions above, does the logframe need to be adapted?
Identify the sources of data to be collected and who will be involved. (After this week, we can focus on the tools required to collect the data)
Bringing outside stakeholders along for the pilot (Chandan + Ronali +Shalu)
Identify the right partners who can use the data (buyers of seedlings, seed companies, banks)
Share project vision and see how it aligns with their programs
Invite to key moments during the pilot
Post pilot, have a conversation about how they’d like to participate going forward.
Post pilot, DG reflects on what tools / video advisory can help farmer groups hold this process independently in the future.
Action items for week of 5/16:
Have early conversations with 2-5 external stakeholders who we might connect with over the course of the pilot.
Do they express any data points that we should build into measurement?
Nabard / Bank / Dept of horticulture and agriculture
Material provider
Soil mix
Grant Disbursement (Giovanna, Ronali, Ashu)
Legal and compliance checks by DG on how to route money
Define roles / responsibilities incl DG, FPO, resource orgGrant proposal (video) incl detail on physical and data assets
Grant agreement (something simple, augment paper with a video)
Grant disbursement schedule (up-front vs. tranched)
Grant close-out (video?)
Action items for week of 5/16:
Align on whether we will purchase the asset directly or use a different process
Physical Asset (Ronali starting the conversation, then Chandan and Amrita)
Technical training to operationalize the asset
Procurement
Installation / setup
Go-Live
Provision for asset maintenance and servicing
Action items for week of 5/16:
Identify the source, price, setup for the asset. Ensure that it maps to the project timeline.
Pest and disease management: Local agriculture officer who will provide technical support to the farmers 2-3 times per month. After consulting with the agriculture officer, we can figure out if DG needs to make some videos, and what seeds to procure.
Installation will be done by the vendor
Seeds - the agricultural officer will help find the quality seeds
Data Systems
Data officer selection and training or are we using a distributed model?
How is the data officer incentivized?
Capture and validate data
Farmers engage with data
Share data with service providers
Brainstorm additional use cases for data
What data needs to be high confidence and shows potential for the role of blockchain?
Action items for week of 5/16:
Identify who the data officer will be
Identify methods to validate the most important pieces of data