Digital Farming
User Research for good. I joined an interdisciplinary team of IBMers to design sustainable farming solutions for small-holder farmers in Malawi. IBM partnered with a non-profit client to create advancements in digital farming. The goal was to increase smallholder farmer income by supporting them with IBM solutions and digital technology. IBM can deliver tools to farmers that help them mitigate the existing impacts of climate change.
IBM Garage | Heifer International
Role:
UX Researcher
Year:
2021
The Challenge
Smallholder farmers in Malawi are being negatively impacted by climate change. As a result, they are unable to produce high crop yields and have access to formal markets. How might we increase the income, experience, and quality of life for smallholder farmers by transforming existing agricultural processes using new technologies?
The Solution
A technical roadmap with recommendations for the design, development, and implementation of a platform ecosystem of solutions benefitting smallholder farmers.
DISCOVERY WORKSHOPS
The Design Thinking team began our project by running two discovery workshops with stakeholders from the client side and SMEs from IBM. We uncovered pain points experienced by the farmers and farmer cooperatives.
I looked to validate and investigate these pain points further, alongside the rest of the UXR team, by running 1:1 interviews with stakeholders, cooperative leaders, and small farmers.
USER INTERVIEWS
We conducted 5 sponsor user interviews to validate pain points faced by farmers. We then ran 2 user validation sessions with the client representatives and a group of farmers to validate the ‘to-be state.
PERSONAS
As a result of these research sessions, a user persona was crafted to guide the design activities. Ferig is a 40-year-old farmer in Malawi. She has been a farmer for 15 years but struggles with 6 main pain point areas.
Based on the findings shown above, I began sketching ideas for a solution that would help solve their frustrations in creating information design pieces without proper guidance and a design system.
Lack of financing
Without access to land registration, business history, forecasting, personal identification, and more, getting loans is difficult making it hard for Ferig to grow her business. Delayed cash payments from coops hinder farmers from investing in their farms. Farmers resort to selling to middlemen who provide fast cash but accept lower price points.
Climate change
Altered weather patterns result in increases in drought, pests and disease, and storage spoilage challenges which affect Ferig’s crop yield and quality. New farming practices may be needed to adapt. Ferig needs help from extension workers, the cooperative, and other training in order to update her methods for a productive harvest.
Communication
Lack of access to electricity for digital communication and/or geographical silos prevents Ferig from easily communicating with other farmers, coops, and extension workers.
Exchange with these entities can bring Ferig information on best farming practices, weather forecasts, inputs, bargaining power, and other critical updates.
Storage & Transport
The lack of affordable access to storage and transport poses a risk to Ferig’s income. Proper storage preserves the quality of Ferig’s goods and will fetch higher prices at sale as would a central warehouse to bulk her goods with other farmers. If Ferig cannot store her goods, she may resort to selling to middlemen more quickly before spoilage, but at the cost of accepting lower prices.
Gender considerations
Women constitute 70% of farmers, yet she faces challenges specific to her gender. Ferig has taken a loan needed to invest in her business but lacks financial decision-making power within her family. Unequal access to education also means Ferig’s lower literacy could make using technology even harder.
Youth involvement
Ferig encourages her daughter to join the farming profession. Like many of her peers, Ferig’s daughter hesitates because she has seen Ferig struggle in this industry. Also, Ferig’s daughter prefers to remain in the city after school in what she perceives as a more “modern” lifestyle.
Root Cause Analysis
To further investigate pain points, we ran a root cause analysis with the rest of the team to understand how these pain points may be connected and what the deeper cause may be. We used this analysis to inform our to-be journey.
Our findings showed that many of the pain points were connected which meant we needed to refocus our solutions towards solving for main causes rather than individual, isolated issues. For example, we found that without a centralized system to acquire digital identification documents, farmers would not be able to officially register their land with the government which in turn would lead to them being denied access to loans from financial services. This would result in farmers not being able to invest in their farming activities, ultimately cutting them off from formal markets and solutions to alleviate the effects of climate change.
Once we had our pain points validated by the end-users and we ran a root-cause analysis to understand what factors may be causing them, the team was ready to begin crafting the ideal to-be state.
In meetings with stakeholders, we designed a "golden thread" that included how pain points will be addressed, opportunities for improvement in the user journey, key business requirements, and technical solutions.
I validated the to-be state with end-users, collected user feedback, and implemented changes.
