Digitalization of Advisory Services to Support Farmers in Managing Their Farm Production

The digitalization of advisory services is becoming an opportunity for agriculture development. However, several reasons make the usage of online tools difficult, first due to the current capacities from the advisory side and from the demand side in this case from farmers. Improving production methods and gaining new knowledge and practices is an existing challenge if advisors and farmers want to be globally competitive.

Advisory services to improve production and sales are crucial for the further development of the most promising and developed agriculture sub-sectors. IADK noted that there is limited access among producers, specifically small farmers, and collection centers, to knowledge: of production techniques, investment planning, and information flow. Also, there is a mismatch between demand and supply in the advisory service market, due to a lack of an affordable, functional, and transparent agro-consulting market. As a result, there is a huge number of rural small farmers and agriculture businesses who are not well receiving the advisory services they need.

Smallholder farmers lack knowledge of production techniques for achieving better production, not because of investment but mainly because of proper advisory services provided. A significant number of agronomists are available in the country, but the challenges remain with their updating of knowledge, network, and the opportunities given to share advice.
For that reason, in the framework of the EU project, IADK engaged a professional services provider that is already well established in digital services in agriculture and can matchmake the demand for advisory services in digitalization for Kosovo – AGRIVI FMS.

When searching for the appropriate tool for managing advisory services to farmers, they were looking for a simple-to-use tool. Exploring AGRIVI’s webpage, they found it very attractive and the perfect match tool for what they need. For that reason, they got in contact with AGRIVI representatives and asked for a deeper insight into the entire platform.
“Our team analyzed several similar tools by limiting the options on what they are interested in.” They choose the tool that is more commercial and sustainable in the future, having a lot of new and innovative things for farmers.