Empowering Ethiopian Smallholder Farmers: Lersha-CIMMYT Collaboration under AICCRA Initiative for Tailored Agro-Climate Advisory towards building smallholder farmers' Resilience

Sileshi, M., Endris, H., Nassir, A., Tadesse, N., Yohannes, Z., Endrias, A. 2024. Empowering Ethiopian Smallholder Farmers: Lersha-CIMMYT Collaboration under AICCRA Initiative for Tailored Agro-Climate Advisory towards building smallholder farmers' Resilience. Green Agro Solution. AICCRA Report. Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA).

Lersha is an inclusive one-stop digital service that aims to support smallholder farmers by providing them with convenient access to essential resources and assistance for their agricultural needs. Leveraging technology, Lersha offers a comprehensive platform where farmers can also directly connect with Lersha Agents to fulfil their farming requirements.

The platform comprises a mobile application, a call center, and a dedicated team of Lersha Agents, facilitating seamless transactions and interactions with farmers. Lersha's primary objective is to address the lack of effective advisory services, which often leads to poor agronomic practices and slow responses to climate and agricultural risks. The advisory content provided by Lersha is carefully generated and verified by the Ministry of Agriculture, ensuring its credibility and relevance.

Through the one-stop digital platform and with the assistance of Lersha Agents, farmers can easily place orders and purchase necessary farm inputs. Moreover, Lersha goes beyond simple transactions by offering valuable guidance on how to effectively use the purchased products, where to apply them, and more. Additionally, farmers have the option to have their goods conveniently delivered to their doorstep.

Currently, Lersha is making a significant impact, reaching nearly 100,000 farmers through a network of 642 dedicated Lersha Agents. The platform specifically targets smallholder farmers in Ethiopia who typically manage farms smaller than 1 hectare, relying primarily on family labor. These farmers often face challenges in accessing farm inputs and mechanization services, resulting in traditional farming practices with low productivity. Lersha addresses these issues by bundling agro-climate advisory services with farm inputs and mechanization services, all facilitated through the mobile application, call centre, and digitally enabled Lersha Agents.

To sustain its operations and incentivize its agents, Lersha adopts a commission-based model, where successful transactions are divided between the agents and the platform. Additionally, the platform aims to collaborate with telecom operators and commercial banks to introduce new services and incentives, further motivating Lersha Agents and expanding the range of offerings.

Recruiting and training agents are crucial components of scaling Lersha's model, albeit at a significant cost. Lersha Agents play a vital role as they act as intermediaries between the platform and smallholder farmers, promoting digital literacy and financial inclusion in rural areas, including empowering women farmers. They also disseminate regular and dynamic agro-climate advisory content, contributing to improved farming practices and building resilience among rural farmers by connecting them to agriculture services such as agricultural insurance and small loans through digital tools.

To efficiently manage the growing number of agents, Lersha employs a digital training approach, ensuring effective onboarding and ongoing management. This strategy enables the platform to extend its services to more than 168,500 smallholder farmers across five regions in Ethiopia, providing various agricultural services and support.