Over four growing seasons in South Sulawesi, we have put our agronomy advice to the test through a series of demonstration plots. These plots are live, in-situ tests of how Jiva’s advice before, during and after the growing cycle affects a farmer’s yield.

Here’s how it works:

• Well before the beginning of each season, a group of farmers from various regencies are recruited to participate in a 1-season trial of Jiva’s advice. As participants, they are extended financing through Jiva to purchase inputs from the Jiva e-commerce store. In exchange, they agree to follow Jiva’s advice, delivered daily through the farmer application.
• Throughout the growing season, Jiva measures their progress, conducts interviews and surveys and tests new content, features and designs. Our Demo Plot Farmers are invaluable assets not just as growers but as users of the application.
• At the end of the season, Jiva purchases the demo plot farmers harvest and weighs it. We take note of their input costs, labour costs and quality. We then collect data about their past harvests. We do the same for neighbouring non-Jiva farmers.
• Finally, we compare the data in-season (Jiva farmer vs. non-Jiva farmer) and across seasons (Jiva farmer vs. prior seasons) to determine the efficacy of the advice for the average farmer.

The results

We conducted demo plot experiments with 135 individual farmers across 5 regencies, all with approximately 1 hectare of land. We did not control for many factors, including elevation, land slope and environmental factors such as drought and flooding.

We’re thrilled to say that preliminary data from these demo plots shows that 85% of our farmers increased their yield, with an average increase of over 40%! These are unprecedented figures, particularly from experiments in semi-controlled environments. From reinvesting in the land to paying off cyclical debt and even sending children to school, 40% is life-changing.

Interested in Jiva? Follow us on Linkedin and Twitter or reach out at hello@jiva.ag