Data Requirements

Context: Grants disbursed via the funding platform provide an incentive for farmer groups to capture and share data. The theory is that this will catalyze digitization and farmer groups will see value in capturing additional information which can be leveraged across various use cases. This page is a repository for what sort of information farmer groups will need to share in exchange for receiving grant funding.

1. Headline stats on FPO performance

   1. If farmer groups are the unit at which data will be aggregated and shared, its critical for these groups to thrive. Ideally, the investments our grants support are catalytic and catapult groups to a place where they are delivering value to members.

   2. Some specific stats to consider:

      1. Total members signed up

      2. Total members who have contributed share capital (in some cases this is covered by govt and I think this should be flagged as we want to measure members with some skin in the game)

      3. % of members who purchased inputs through FPO during most recent season

      4. % of members who sold produce through FPO during most recent season

         1. For now, don’t want to get into value of purchases / sales as that becomes really tricky to track; the logic is that farmer members will transact through the FPO only when it makes sense

      5. Data officers trained

   3. One critical element to think through is how to create trust and credibility in these stats. Is this reporting being done for any other purpose? Who plays a validator role? Initially it could be DG interviewing a sample of farmer members but we need a longer-term answer

2. “Project” stats

   1. This will be vary a lot based on what is being funded.

   2. For the Afforestation project

      1. # of trees planted

      2. # of villages w at least [20] trees planted

      3. Biomass of trees planted (note, this could be tracked by a partner like Rabo Acorns who will use it as the basis for disbursing ecosystem service payments, farmer groups will consent for the data to be shared with DG (and its donor partners) in exchange for the funding we facilitated to get the project in motion

      4. Monetary value of contributions / support from local government partners (eg, NREGA and ITDA): This indicates how effectively the grant funding was leveraged

3. Member / PG level foundational data assets

   1. A condition of the grant financing may be to digitize some core information which will be valuable across use cases for the farmer group and its members over time

   2. Some examples:

      1. Lat / long of member plot

      2. Member plot boundary

      3. Bank account

      4. Govt ID

      5. Results of latest soil test. What is cost of a test and would it make sense to have use of proceeds go towards this? @Archana K (Unlicensed) and @Vineet Singh curious to hear your take based on learnings w Krishi Tantra pilot in AP

4. Data related to input procurement and crop marketing (eg, info captured in KDE today)

In 1 b. above, should we also consider to add FPOs using digital mode of payment? FPOs/ FPGs can digitize financial transactions with the farmers or other stakeholders. This will add to transparency and accuracy of their operations.

In 1 c. To add credibility of stats backchecks may be done on sample basis. You are right, initially these can be done by DG but later I think FPO itself need to bear this responsibility.