DFN Components

Owned by Ashu Sikri (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Apr 19, 2022
4 min read

“Digital Farmer Networks” or “DFN” describes an end-state or vision. DG's work will contribute to realizing this vision but we are one actor in a larger ecosystem of players and ideally our technology tools and thought leadership can influence others in a direction that aligns with DFN.

Simply put, the end state we are working towards is one where Farmer groups have control / agency over their own data and leverage it to deliver value for their members; farmer groups have the capacity to drive the digitization effort themselves.

So what is DFN specifically? It has a few key pillars:

 

Confidential Data Compute

  • Tools that enable secure data sharing and analytics to be generated in a manner that doesn’t compromise data privacy or result in loss of control

  • Some examples based on current and upcoming offerings:

    • Data Wallet

    • Consent Manager

    • P2P connectors

    • FS Discovery

    • Progressive decentralization (byte storage and ID)

Data Capture and Analytics

  • User interfaces for capturing and visualizing data at the farmer or farmer group level

  • Some examples based on existing projects

    • Dashboard for FPO leadership to see PG level and aggregated input requirements and marketable surplus

    • Benchmarking report that compares farmer performance on key

    • Planting date survey

Incentives

  • Funding platform: The most direct and tangible benefit is cash which farmer groups can invest to strengthen their member value prop

  • Tokens and gamification to reward data capture and validation

Capacity Building and Training

  • Digital literacy

  • Data officer

 

  1. Technology product

    • User Interface / Analytics: For capturing and viewing data

      • Front-end app/UI with a back-end data store (which could be a normal DB or decentralized over time, more on that below)

      • Today, this is KDE where there are three distinct interfaces

        • “PG officer” which is a mobile app used by farmer members to capture data information crop grown, marketable surplus for sale, inputs required

        • Dashboard for FPO leadership to see aggregated data and drill down; answer questions like “What is the total quantity of corn available for sale across my members”

        • Buyer interface which lets FPO publish marketable surplus into a catalog that can be easily shared w buyers

      • Explore using photos and voice notes as method of data entry; look back to some of the ideas we explored w NavanaTech

      • Coordination and communication between members (expect a lot of in-person meetings and Whatsapp at present; what if anything needs to be formalized, eg, decisions made by the farmer group BOD)

    • Asset Layer:

      • If we pursue a use case related to financial products (loans, grants, insurance, ecosystem services payments), this is where the financial product is defined

      • NFT with smart contract to govern transactions / payments related to the asset

      • Decentralization / DeFi has utility here in terms of streamlining payments, fractionalizing, making an asset “programmable”

    • Data layer: How is data structured and stored?

      • Data model: impose some structure on the data to support interoperability and make the data more usable externally; will be informed by the use cases we want to support

      • Progressive decentralization: Today, KDE data is stored in the cloud by Digital Green. Over time, can we move towards a decentralized storage model which gives farmers greater control / agency over their data assets

      • Visibility and access to data collected from other sources (eg, not just the UI described above)

    • Other stuff:

      • Tokens as an incentive and governance mechanism

      • Interface to share data with value-add service providers (consent manager fits here?)

  2. “Go to market” or how do we drive adoption in the real world

    • Entry points; what is a value prop that drives farmer group adoption of the technology product?

    • How do farmer groups learn about DFN? Do we leverage SRLM partners as a channel to reach farmer groups? Or resource institutions? Or entities like NABARD and SFAC?

    • How do farmer groups on-board and see value from the technology product; what handholding support do we provide?

    • A data officer or on-ground resource embedded within farmer group

    •  Training and capacity building content on topics like data literacy; can look to the FPO videos we are producing (why join an FPO, how to do a business plan) as reference

    • Who are the entities that use the data generated by farmers? What are their pain points and how does DFN address these?

      • Do we build integrations with organizations who leverage data generated by farmers and is this done as part of FS? @Vineet Singh

  3. Economic and governance model

    • When we say farmers “own” the data, what does this mean?

    • What is the legal entity that is building and maintaining the software? And what about the data?

      • Data Trust, Data Cooperative, DAO

    • What is the cost of delivering the DFN services and do farmer groups pay to access?

      1. consider a sliding subsidy scale; eg. 100% subsidy in Years 1 and 2 then dropping by 1/3 in subsequent years

    • How is this entity funded?

    • How are decisions made?

    • What role do product users / farmer groups play in terms of governance of this entity

      • In a Web3 model, tokens show up for funding and decisions making as well

Open things:

  • Where does policy stuff fit? Specifically, how does the data ownership model contemplated here relate to - in India - IDEA/Agristack and some future Data Protection legislation? What about Ethiopia and Kenya?

  • Does Farmstack have similar components? The details will obviously be different but might be helpful to breakdown along similar lines. @Vineet Singh

 

This replaces the “FDN visualization” drafted Dec 2021 which is here for reference.