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Through Questions We Learn Through Answers We Serve - Precision Agriculture for Development 2019 Annual Report

Precision Agriculture for Development in 2019

2019 was a seminal year for Precision Agriculture for Development’s organizational and operational growth.

- Owen Barder, Chief Executive Officer

2019 at a Glance:

Questions of Scale:

Navigating Challenges and Opportunities

Over the course of 2019, as new and existing programs and partnerships expanded their reach and sophistication, PAD’s operational footprint grew rapidly.

When PAD commenced operations in 2016, we served just 26,900 farmers in Gujarat, India, and Western Kenya. In 2019, our services reached 3.53 million farmers.

Beyond the numbers, our expanding theatre of operations presents opportunities, challenges, and new questions that will shape the way we structure and conduct our work in 2020 and beyond.

Iterating and Building Services

Meeting need and demand

The development of the MoA-INFO service in Kenya offers a rich example of how PAD is capable of deepening a service over time. MoA-INFO began as a Fall Armyworm advisory service, but in 2019 was iterated to provide farmers and agro-dealers with actionable information on six crops and optimal input use, in addition to its foundational pest-management content.

Empowering Women Farmers

Improving livelihoods and nutrition

Female farmers in rural India confront unique and gendered barriers that inhibit their ability to access and benefit from agronomic information.

How can digital systems empower poor and rural women? In 2019 we piloted content specifically targeting women farmers on our Ama Krushi service in Odisha, India.

Working with Extension Agents

Digital tools can complement and build capabilities

In this section, we explore PAD's experience working in tandem with traditional extension workers across three contexts.

Leveraging Dairy and Livestock to Mitigate Poverty

Many smallholder families rear livestock to support their livelihoods.

In 2019 PAD began developing advisory content on dairy and animal husbandry, areas rich with potential to improve smallholder productivity and incomes.

Through Questions We Grow

Research and learning informs everything that we do.

Evidence is our touchstone, informs improvements to our systems, and enables us to identify and scale success to better serve larger numbers of farmers.

We aim not only to filter out success from failure, but to learn and to make this learning widely available. We value failure just as much as success. No question is too big (or too small) to fail, and relative failure may spark new questions that lead to unforeseen successes.

Nobel Company

Michael Kremer is a Nobel Prize Winner!

In the second week of October 2019, the Nobel committee announced that the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (aka the Nobel Prize in Economics) would be awarded to PAD's co-founder and board member, Michael Kremer together with his long-standing colleagues and collaborators, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo.

Our Team

PAD is powered by skilled and committed individuals, teams and leadership.

2019 marked a year of significant organizational growth and development. Our multi-national, multi-talented and intrepid team has grown and developed new capabilities.

We also bid farewell to Madhur Jain, PAD's inaugural India Country Director. His parting words offer wise counsel and buttress our ambition to do more.

Our Tech

In 2019 we launched PADDY, an in-house, PAD-wide technology stack.

PADDY offers us a range of advantages as we iterate our services and expand our reach. The PADDY platform already powers our work in Kenya and is being piloted in aspects of our work in India.

Our Partners

Partners facilitate reach, expertise and access

A key component of PAD's rapid expansion is the quality and capabilities of our partners. We have been privileged to develop deep and enduring relationships with 27 implementation partners spanning the public, private, non-governmental and multilateral sectors.

Our Funders

We cannot work, research or learn without the support we receive from our funders.

This year we deepened our relationship with existing funders and accrued new funding partners. These commitments enabled us to consolidate existing work, embark on new initiatives, and ask new questions.

Finances