Farmer surveys: ask a targeted smallholder population directly

What is a farmer survey on Farmer1st?

A farmer survey is a direct question asked to a targeted population of smallholder farmers, answered with their consent through a trusted channel. It gives brands, banks, NGOs, development agencies and public programmes something that is otherwise slow and expensive to obtain: first-hand answers from the people who grow the crop.

Farmer1st is the first-mile infrastructure built around farmers: a farmer-controlled network where companies, governments and organisations collect, verify and share origin data, and build the services they need on top of it. Surveys use that network to reach farmers who have chosen to take part.

Who can you ask, and how precisely?

You define the population. Typical filters include:

• Country and region, down to the areas that matter for your programme.
• Gender and age group, for questions that affect women or young farmers differently.
• Crop, for example cocoa, coffee, rubber, cashew or spices.
• Other attributes recorded with consent in the registry, such as farm size or cooperative membership.

Some examples of what organisations ask:

How is consent handled?

Consent comes first. Each farmer sees who is asking and what the survey is about, and decides whether to take part. No answer is collected without that choice, and farmers control what is shared with whom. This protects farmers, and it also gives the organisation asking a clear legal basis for using the answers.

How do you know the answers are reliable?

Respondents are real farmers registered and verified on the network, not anonymous panel members. Answers are:

• matched to the farmer’s verified record;
• checked for internal consistency and against earlier answers;
• screened for duplicates and patterns that suggest careless responses.

Farmers are fairly compensated for their contribution. Their time and knowledge have value, and fair compensation also supports honest, considered answers.

Why is survey access pre-competitive?

Without a pooled channel, every programme builds its own list and asks the same farmers similar questions again and again. That is costly for organisations and tiring for farmers.

On Farmer1st, access to farmers can be pre-competitive when buyers and programmes choose it: those who agree pool the survey channel, on terms they set together, so farmers are asked once through one trusted route. Each organisation’s farmer registry stays private unless it decides otherwise. What stays private is yours alone: your questions, your answers and your analysis are never visible to other organisations. Read more on the pre-competitive network.

How are surveys delivered in the field?

Surveys go out through the farmer app, which works offline, in local languages, with voice and read-aloud for farmers with low literacy. Where a face-to-face conversation works better, the same survey can be run by field teams organised through field agent management.

What happens after the survey?

Results are consolidated by population and area, so you can see where a gap sits and for whom. Many organisations then act on it directly: they push targeted training and quizzes to the farmers concerned, then survey again to measure change. Social questions can also feed human rights due diligence.

Can we design a survey programme that fits our needs?

Yes. Modules switch on as you need them. If you need a recurring panel, a specific sampling design or a custom dashboard, we prototype it with you in the Nursery.