The importance of personalized coaching
13 November 2019
When the initial version of FarmGrow became available in Ghana, global cocoa trader Touton was the first company to embrace the system and started to promote the use of it among its network of farmers. Touton is deeply committed to supporting farmers in increasing their yields and income from existing cocoa lands and to avoid expansion into forest areas. To that end, Touton, on-boarded coaches among its own staff to guide cocoa farmers participating in FarmGrow on a personal basis in order to help them implement their seven-year farming plans.
FarmGrow is a new digital application that provides farmers and companies with relevant information and recommendations to increase productivity. Touton especially values the tailored and personalized approach of FarmGrow. With many data points collected on plot level, the tool looks at farming and business operations in a much more detailed and systemic manner. This in turn allows the platform to generate farm and plot level data insights that better reflect the specific requirements and needs of the farmer.
“Because the plan is individualized and coaches are trained to apply a personal approach, farmers are coming to understand their farm management in a way that makes increasing yields and income a reality step by step.”
The FarmGrow coaches use the digital tool to guide the farmer on a personal level in creating and implementing a long-term business plan. One of the coaches at Touton, Jeffery Abam, says the benefits of the FarmGrow method are numerous. The tool’s output is accurate; it’s easy to determine the socio-economic status of farming households; and the data collected across a farmer network can be easily retrieved for reference. Best of all, because the plan is individualized and coaches are trained to apply a personal approach, farmers are coming to understand their farm management in a way that makes increasing yields and income a reality step by step.
As Bismark Dzinaku, another Touton coach puts it, farmers are beginning to think of their farms as a business rather than a way of life taken for granted. Bismark Dzinaku also agrees that the one-on-one coaching of farmers is one of FarmGrow’s biggest strengths. His role as a coach is to build a personal relationship with farmers, helping them learn to understand the FarmGrow plan and how to implement its recommendations. This personal approach builds trust between a farmer and his coach, he explains, which strongly contributes to the overall uptake of farming recommendations.