As n agribusiness owner, communicating with rural farmers can be challenging. It can get complicated and tiring when you can’t convey your message correctly. 

But don’t worry, we’re here to help with that. 

We gathered crucial information from industry experts to guide you better.  

So, here’s the big question, how do you communicate with farmers? 

Keep reading to find the answers. 

First, let’s explore the challenges of communicating with farmers. 

What are the challenges with communicating with farmers?

Before we answer the million-dollar question of “How to communicate with farmers?” 

We need to look at the problems agribusinesses like you face in communicating with farmers in rural areas. 

As an agribusiness owner, you may encounter these problems:

• Limited media reach: The Internet has yet to reach many rural areas. This imposes limitations on communication with farmers.
• Understanding rural audience: Understanding your rural audience’s behavioural and demographic characteristics is vital. But it can be challenging to do effectively because of the limited data on rural dems.
• Many languages: In rural areas, it’s commonplace for different communities to speak different dialects. Even in the same state.
• Sales team reluctance: Sales teams are often reluctant to work in rural areas. This is due to the challenges they face. We explained some already.

Now that you know the problems with communicating with farmers. We present to you four best practices that experts recommend to help you communicate with farmers effectively. 

What are the interactive ways to communicate with the farmers? 

We contacted experts to gather helpful ideas to help you communicate with farmers. 

Here are a few tips to get you going.

These tips will help you communicate with farmers effectively and also help boost your sales and growth as a result. 

1. Ask questions and conduct surveys

Jaison Mathew John, from Tridge, says, “The first step to implementing an effective communication strategy is to know your audience. In this specific case, the farmers. This is more than saying, my customer is a cotton farmer.” 

Jaison continues to add.  “You need to understand the problems they face. Then you can offer specific products that solve their problems.” 

How do you do this?

“The quickest and easiest way is by asking your customers questions. Preferably in a 1:1 situation.” Jaison adds.

Here are some questions you can ask to help you understand your customer better:

• Personal and demographic information
• Crop type and rotation patterns
• Relationships with other farmers 
• Acreage and land spread
• The distinction between owned and operated land 
• Geospatial imagery (if the farmer has it) 
• Grain bin count and capacity

Jaison continues.

“You can keep adding more questions to this. Ensure that you understand the grass root level problem the farmers face.” 

“Furthermore, you could conduct surveys and use them as objective data. This helps to understand your product demographic as well.” 

“With this approach, you are not only communicating with the farmer. You are also building a customer persona and product awareness. This helps to  boost your sales.”

Read: Best Audio Conference Services of 2023

2. Play to the strength of the medium

Here’s one of the easiest and best ways to ensure farmer participation. You start by choosing a medium that they are comfortable with. 

In rural areas, most interactions occur via phone and SMS or face-to-face.

We covered the face-to-face part.

Dr. Tony Torres, Agribusiness Leader in Marketing and Data Analysis, says, “Communicating through the farmers’ preferred medium helps convey your message to them. 

People keep saying we need to infuse tech and agriculture. As that’s happening, we must make it easier for the farmers. With the overexposure to tech, farmers might find it a bit overwhelming.“

So imagine you want to talk to a group of farmers on a phone call. 

How do you do that? 

Conference call? The kind where you call each of them individually, puts them on hold and then ensure all are on the call. 

This process is not only problematic for you and your farmers but also, in the long run, will cause your farmers to despise tech.

Instead, you can use an audio conference tool such as grptalk.

grptalk is an audio conferencing solution that lets you connect with 3 to 50,000+ people in under 3 seconds. 

It offers high-quality audio conferencing with a complete focus on your meetings. So, you don’t have to worry about a drop in quality even with 1000+ participants. 

With grptalk, farmers do not need the internet to hear from you. They simply answer a call like they usually do, and viola, they are part of your conference now. 

So in rural markets, this is quite an efficient tool. 

They also have proven case studies of agribusinesses using grptalk, adding confidence in their product.” 

Read: Ways Government Can Mass Educate the Public in India

3. Embed interactive features into your interactions

Deborah Perkins, the global head of food and agribusiness at ING, says, “You can increase the reach of your communication just by utilising different mediums and types of tech.”

Deborah adds, “What suits your audience is something you need to figure out with market research. However, phone, radio, and farmer physical meet work in a rural context. 

For example, you can host a radio program to educate farmers on a new farming technique. 

In the radio program, you can ask farmers to call in to ask questions.

This not only allows you to get information on how well you’re reaching the farmers. It also helps in gathering curated insights about your farmers.

In addition to that, your customers (farmers) feel like they’re part of your business.

Armed with this information, you can personalise and design specific programs and meets that will help you connect with your audience. “

Read: The Ultimate Guide to Agrimarketing in India

4. Scheduled follow-ups 

Stephanie Sneff, a senior food research scientist at MIT, has some unique points on reaching out to farmers. Stephanie says, “Follow-ups are usually underrated in a rural context. Marketers and companies usually believe that the product or service they are selling is a game-changer.”

Stephanie continues, “However, farmers and agribusiness are evolving rapidly. This evolution means competition is fierce, and without multiple follow-ups with your customers, you’re bound to lose them.”

Stephanie says, “Even your farmers need support and regular check-ins. Check with your customers on a personal level and ensure that they’re achieving their goals. All this is only possible when you connect with them on multiple occasions. 

Follow-ups can help you gauge and understand the progress and spread of your product. It also helps you tweak your products/services to meet your customers’ changing needs.”

Stephanie concludes,” With this in mind, ensure you create a practical framework that helps your teams regularly follow up with your customers. To go a step further, you can also have some standardised questions that you can use to make the process easier for your team” 

Our experts have spoken, and these tried-and-tested strategies will work. Only if you implement them well. 

Read: Must-Have Online Tools For Every Agribusiness in India

Communicating with farmers is easy with grptalk

Let’s do a quick recap, so you don’t forget. 

To effectively communicate with farmers:

• Ask questions and conduct surveys to understand your audience
• Use the appropriate medium and tech to connect with your audience
• Embed interactive elements into your communication

Communication can be easy if you follow these simple steps.

So don’t spend time wondering what to do next. Grptalk can help you stay up close with farmers wherever they are. No matter how many they are.

Get started with free call minutes on grptalk, or schedule a demo now. Sign up to experience how grptalk’s audio conferencing capabilities grow your business.