**UPDATE** On December 15, 2021, the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture canceled the project that had been awarded to PxD by public tender. We continue to work with our regional partners, IICA, and the Government of Brazil to identify complementarities and further opportunities for collaboration.
As those of us in the northern hemisphere return to our home offices after an unusual summer, at PAD we do so cognizant of farmers we serve who continue to navigate a period of escalated uncertainty and precariousness due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At PAD we are motivated and optimistic about the ways in which we can do more to understand our farmers’ evolving needs, and about how we can equip them with empowering information to more effectively mitigate new risks, insulate their households from the pernicious impacts of the pandemic, and promote more efficient and productive agricultural practices.
We excited to commence implementing operations supported by a grant and partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (signed on the 28th of August – see our most recent quarterly report for more information) to support the digital extension activities in Kenya, Pakistan and – a new country for PAD – Nigeria.
We are also excited to be pursuing a new partnership with the Government of Brazil and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture. This new opportunity will scale our digital extension work to farmers in a new hemisphere, on a new continent, and in a new geography, at a time when farmers’ informational needs continue to escalate, and in-person sources of information have become more tenuous.
Watch this space!
The impact of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, is changing the lives of our staff and the farmers we serve across all our geographies. Our families, community and colleagues have not escaped the most pernicious effects of the virus, and we hold those affected in our thoughts as they deal with loss, social distance from family, closure and healing. People are scared about health and livelihoods, for themselves and for other people: we hear you, and we will do everything we can to be there for you.
PAD’s approach to digital development has proven to be resilient, adaptable and capable of helping farmers in contexts where traditional in-person extension services are not possible because of the need to maintain social distancing. As well as expanding our suite of digital extension services we are providing tools to help our partners collect information from farmers to improve understanding of the evolving impacts of COVID-19 on smallholder populations and food security and inform evidence-based decision-making on the part of policymakers.
We have adapted rapidly to mitigate the impact of social distancing protocols on the ways we work. We have adapted our two-way farmer communication flows to make greater use of inbound information from farmers, in order to better understand the COVID-19-related needs and knowledge of smallholder populations, and to advance efforts to slow and analyze impacts associated with the virus. In addition, we are beginning to explore approaches to mitigate the particular challenges posed by the pandemic for smallholder farmers, such as disruptions to agricultural input supply chains and curtailed access to markets for selling farm produce.
From an operational perspective, we decided as an organisation to transition all staff to work-from-home arrangements before official lockdown decisions were implemented across all our geographies, and were able to repatriate a majority of staff who chose to return to their home countries and cities before travel restrictions prevented such movement. We are fortunate and thankful that our staff were largely able to avoid logistical quagmires.
This quarter we were able to continue to modestly expand our farmer reach, despite challenges posed by the pandemic, and seasonal downturns in production among some of our largest groups of farmers.
A detailed presentation of the digital capabilities PAD can deploy in response to COVID-19 is accessible here. Information relating to current COVID-related research and learning are presented in our Quarterly Report. Updated research, findings and pandemic-response activities will be posted to our COVID-19 page and to this blog.
Please take care,
OWEN BARDER
Chief Executive Officer
We have just tied the bow on our final quarterly report for 2019. In the full calendar year Precision Agriculture for Development (PAD) served 3.5 million farmers, assisting some of the poorest people on our planet to increase their farm yields and incomes for the benefit of themselves and their families.
PAD has grown far more quickly than we dared hope in our strategy written just two years ago. As we grow, we are coming to terms with the fact that we are no longer just a start-up. We want to maintain our plucky, can-do and nimble mentality. But we are also in the process of putting in place the governance, structures and systems that enable us to deliver effectively at scale. One component of that has been the appointment of Amrita Ahuja to our board. Amrita brings to our leadership collective a wealth of experience and expertise, and unique insights into scaling evidence-led development interventions as a co-founder of Evidence Action.
PAD is dedicated to learning through rigorous research, but also by learning as an organization, and as a team. Our Q4 2019 report includes open acknowledgement of challenges and setbacks that we have encountered. We know that there are opportunities to learn in moments of frustration, and in instances when we must take two steps back before, again, moving forward. I hope that being frank about challenges, and learning from them, will be a feature of our reporting and communications going forward. (As we move towards being open about where things have not gone as we had hoped, I am reminded of the wise words of the fictional Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister, who tells Ministers that a decision is brave if it will cost them votes, and courageous if it will cost them the election).
In Q4 2019, PAD began operations in Zambia, our eighth country. These are exciting times for all of us at PAD. Many hands have contributed to our success. We hope more will join us as we reach more farmers in more geographies in 2020.
Owen Barder
Chief Executive Office, Precision Agriculture for Development
Make an Impact Today
