One year of PHITO: inspired by 1000 faces & places

This month, it has been a year into PHITO. A massive project, a dream for us. Designing an app with 1000 people across Europe and beyond may sound like a disaster, but we love it and see it as an opportunity and adventure!

One year of discussions, brainstorms around the table, on the road, in the field. A beautiful mix of people, constructive discussions, and good food. This is what PHITO is about!

Time to reflect.

PHITO is now one year old 🎂 what have we been up to?

In September 2023, we started the project PHITO.eu, a project for small farmers, supported by the European Commission. We convinced them with our idea how we would come up with a platform for the farming community of Europe, connecting them with data and eachother. We also convinced them we would reach them in an effective way, with a PHITO VAN, the PHITO STORIES mini-series, and more disruptive ideas that erupted from our brains.

The project really is big, bigger than we ever dreamt of doing. While that does comes with challenges, it’s most of all incredible to see what has happened!

Imagine, from writing down our ideas in a Horizon Europe proposal, to now seeing it being alive in so many brains across Europe. More than 20 partners, at least 50 people dedicating significant time to it, dozens of field visits to the rural corners of Europe.

Co-creation without limits (the more the merrier!)

PHITO the app is developed in an iterative process of multiple steps. Let us explain you which:

1️⃣ Step 1 Persona creation

Of course the first step we have asked ourselves: who the heck will be using PHITO in the future? Who is really the farming community of Europe, and how does it differ across the continent?

Multiple persona creation workshops have taken place in our project sites, consisting of brainstorms about who are connected to farming, and what characterizes these groups. What is their age, their affection with digital tools, their interconnectedness, etc.

2️⃣ Step 2 Food System Needs

Southern Europe faces extreme droughts, European lowlands are dealing with salinisation issues, Central Europe with desertification, while the Alpine basins face flooding. PHITO cannot be a one-size-fits-all, but at least we want to define what unites us as much as possible.

We have identified the needs from the different food systems throughout Europe, together with our partners, to earmark the environmental, agronomic, and socio-economic challenges.

3️⃣ Step 3 User Needs

A key step for the development of PHITO is defining what the various potential users of PHITO actually need. How to define this?

Usually, we would say: plan a few brainstorm sessions, brown paper sessions, whatever you want to name it. A project of this size however, gives us the opportunity to go next level in defining what everyone needs. Like a market exploration, but on a scientific level involving massive data collection.

4️⃣ Step 4 Analysis

Here it becomes scientific. Because: how can we analyse, process, store all the information from the different countries. And, more important: how can we make the right decisions based on this data?

The 700+ in-depth questionnaires and dozens of focus group discussions form a massive dataset on which holds the research potential for several people to obtain a PhD 🤓.

Wageningen University (mostly Luuk Fleskens and Mara Zenebe) have done their trick untangling the massive dataset into one single dataset using a statistical analysis. This resulted in an overview of ‘Farm Typologies’, a description of the different farmer types we have found in Europe. True enough, a typology classification like this looks at the average of the average, with everyone in a little corner with their thinkalikes. We see the danger of that, but it gives the decisions we make so much more foundation. The outcome can be as concrete as these imaginary examples:

1. A smallholder farm in Southern Europe is usually mostly in need of early warning related to pests;
2. A large farmer in Central Europe is facing issues with drought, and is more in need of irrigation advice;
3. The average European farmer is willing to move towards sustainable agriculture but faces challenges in the field of implementation and communication with their cooperative;

What personally struck us most: 80% of the small farmers in our project sites are >70 years old. Indeed , this could be biased as this age group has more time to answer our questions. Taken and considered in our analysis. But, a fair question remains:

is Europe’s small farmer retiring?

In addition, the Focus Group Discussions were analysed by three important PHITO partners bringing their own industry perspectives. Cambisol has checked the data to find a potential golden egg in the local app elements, meaning: how to connect local users of the app with eachother: producers, cooperatives, consumers. ÖMKi has made decisions on the direction for PHITO related to transition pathways: what advice can we give to PHITO app users, and how should this information be communicated, what could be a key feature in the app? Lastly, UNIPD has analysed and concluded how a PHITO user could be linked with existing global datasets, e.g. map-based advice. What information would they need, and how could this data be enriched by users?

In the development, SmartFarming has facilitated the various steps, defining the criteria and laying down the path for all partners of PHITO. Every step was co-directed by them, from user needs, to analysis, to making the final decisions on which features should be in PHITO, and which shouldn’t! (killing darlings is crucial in app development)

5️⃣ Step 5 Design

Time to move to action, to make decisions.

From the analysis we have an endless list of features. And using the analysis, we can also prioritize the potential relevant features. But for the design, only the most relevant from the most relevant features will survive.

For example, we have seen that a lot of communication in the European farming community is taking place between farm and advisors. Cooperatives (or organisations with a similar role) play a key role in this communication, but the platforms they use are often simple and limited (e.g. phone calls or one-way channels).

Four more years of exciting developments to come!

(last update: October 2024)