Welcoming New Members and Transitions
Precision Development (PxD) is delighted to announce that Amrita Ahuja has taken on the role of Board Chair, and the appointment of Jinu Koola to our Board. We welcome Amrita Sabnavis as a non-board member …
Reflections on building Krishi Katha, the award-winning advisory service for smallholder farmers in West Bengal
West Bengal is the 6th largest economy in India, located on the Eastern Seaboard. Its capital city, Kolkata, is the cultural capital of India and is called the ‘City of Joy’ after its soulful embodiment …
Innovative financing to bring clean water to drought-stricken Kenyan dairy farmers
Dairy farmers in Kenya are being hit hard by climate change. The country is seeing increased droughts, and, with dry spells projected to increase up to 27% in severity and heat waves likely to increase …
Embracing equity: Reflecting on PxD’s progress on gender and the way ahead
The streets of Mexico City are filled with purple with tens of thousands of women, old and young, who march side by side. They wear purple to highlight the challenges women still face in Mexico. …
Research in Review: 2022
2022 was a tremendous leap forward for research at PxD. Our research and operations teams completed a total of eight A/B test experiments and impact evaluations. We collected data in person and over the phone …
Making markets for carbon: can smallholder farmers benefit from investments to cut climate change?
Paying people for actions that contribute to climate change mitigation, known as payment for ecosystem services (PES), has the potential to address both environmental and poverty alleviation goals. For example, there is a strong history …
Letter from Lahore – February 2023
Punjab means “five rivers”, and those five rivers are the reason that the Punjab region in Pakistan is the country’s bread basket. Tomoko and I were in Punjab last week visiting the PxD Pakistan country …
New Report: Exploring private sector collaboration to fund free digital extension for smallholder farmers
A new PxD report details fee-for-service private sector collaboration to support free digital extension service delivery to farmers in poverty With support from the Swiss Re Foundation, PxD investigated the viability of new forms of …
Can millions of smallholder farmers meaningfully mitigate climate change and be rewarded for it? We think so.
PxD is collaborating with the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD) to identify opportunities to benefit poor farming communities through their participation in climate mitigation activities. The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP 27) …
Disease, Heat, and Floods: Using digital services to mitigate new challenges to women’s livelihoods in rural Pakistan
When disease and a heatwave, followed by devastating floods ravaged Pakistan’s Punjab province, PxD’s LMAFRP digital information service, which we implement in partnership with the Rural Community Development Society (RCDS) with support from the International …
New possibilities for value-added agricultural advisory services through data sharing and integration
Agricultural livelihoods predominate among the rural population of Ethiopia to such an extent that agriculture makes up 32.5% of the country’s GDP (2020/21) and accounts for 63.5% of employment (2021). Despite the importance of the …
Information for adaptation: Assisting Kenyan farmers on the frontline of climate change
From confronting cataclysmic floods in Pakistan, to biblical pest infestations in east Africa, smallholder farmers are on the frontline of an escalating climate crisis. Poor farmers, whose livelihoods disproportionately depend on rainfed agriculture, are particularly …
Q2 2022: Progress Report!
We are pleased to present our second progress report for 2022, with programmatic and organizational updates for the period spanning 1 April to 30 June. Please write to communications@precisiondev.org for more information or to explore …
Befriending the farmer: Reflections on building and transitioning the Ama Krushi service
On 1 August 2022, PxD completed the transition of the management and operations of Ama Krushi – our largest digital service – to Tatwa Technologies Limited, a third-party firm that won a competitive government tender. …
Twelve months, 2,800 farmers and a new country: Colombia UK Pact Project
In consortium with Rare and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), PxD received a one-year grant from UK PACT in December 2020 to support the implementation of a project to promote sustainable and productive agriculture through behavioral …
Have farmers bounced back from the initial shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic? Results from a multi-country analysis
Given existing poverty, dependence on agriculture for livelihoods, and lack of access to safety nets, poor smallholder families in low- and middle-income countries are particularly vulnerable to exogenous shocks. In March 2020, when the world …
IFAD story about our partnership in Pakistan
Our partner and funder, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), has published a ‘story’ on their website about our collaboration to deliver much-needed digital information to Pakistani smallholder farming families to promote resilience during …
Brewing better weather services for Indian coffee farmers
Accurate, medium-range weather forecasting information can help mitigate smallholder farmers’ exposure to climate-related risks. PxD is in the process of launching new products to assist smallholder farmers to make more informed and timely decisions based …
PxD Tech Demonstration at the 2022 Global Digital Development Forum
Uzoamaka Ugochukwu, PxD’s Nigeria Country Launch Manager, was selected to present a “tech demonstration” at the 2022 rendition of the Global Digital Development Forum. The demonstration presents how PxD leveraged our in-house tech platform, Paddy, …
Reading the coffee grounds: A landscape analysis of challenges confronting Indian coffee growers
Precision Development (PxD) has completed a landscape analysis to more systematically understand the challenges faced by users of the Coffee Krishi Taranga (CKT) service, with a focus on three core areas, namely, sustainability, market linkages, …