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 …
Project News
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 …
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 …
Taking advice: Speaking to farmers to inform more effective services
Precision Development (PxD) leverages needs assessment research to inform our agricultural extension services, and we survey our farmers to gauge their opinion of our services. Sourcing information from farmers gives us direct insight into the …
Cottoning on: A free weather product for Punjab’s cotton belt
PxD is building a free weather forecast product for cotton farmers in Pakistan’s Punjab Province to be launched in March, ahead of Kharif – South Asia’s summer planting season. The service will be launched in …
Weathering the storm: Smallholder farmers and the untapped potential of weather forecasts
Accurate weather forecasts would reduce uncertainty for farmers, yet they are under-supplied and under-studied in developing countries. Government and market failures reduce the quality and reach of weather information in rural regions, reducing its value …
Evidence to Policy – New Video
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab’s (J-PAL) has showcased PxD as an organization that leveraged the value of randomized evaluations to launch more effective approaches to reducing poverty on a global scale. The video …
Accessing the Power of E-Commerce for Smallholder Farmers
Can e-commerce address constraints that inhibit growth and productivity among Indian smallholder farmers? Rohit Goel, a Research and Operations Associate on PxD’s India Team, investigates and traces the contours of an exciting PxD pilot in …
Leveraging Women’s Groups to Bridge Gender-Specific Information Gaps in India
Vaishnavi Surendra, Post-Doctoral Researcher, and Revati Vaidya, Process and Product Innovation Associate, mark the International Day of Rural Women At PxD, we aim to generate research and design products and services that bridge information gaps …
Generating New Insights for Increased Impact
Tomoko Harigaya, PxD’s Chief Economist and Director of Research, and Caitlin McKee, Global Research Support Manager (with input from across the Research Team) detail lines of new inquiry intended to build our research base and …
A New Digital Extension Project in Brazil!
We are humbled and thrilled to have been announced as the winners of a tendering process to deliver digital extension services to 100,000 farmers in Brazil’s Northeast Region (NER). The announcement by Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Food Supply (MAPA) on the 6th of July marked the conclusion of a rigorous and competitive five-month-long tendering process.
Kharif in Odisha: A Monsoon of Information
Tarun Pokiya, Lead Agronomist, Prasanna Kumar, Senior Software Engineer, Hannah Timmis, India Research Manager, Tushar Singh, Research and Operations Associate, Srinivas VT, Senior Associate, and Revati Vaidya, Process and Product Innovation Associate, collaborated on this …