The NewTimes Newspaper in Rwanda reports the testing of mobile applications developed under the "Agricultural Services and Digital Inclusion in Rwanda" - which includes the four mobile applications - 'Cure and feed your livestock', 'eNtrifood', 'Weather and crop', and 'AgriMarketplace' developed in support of FAO. The testing was done on Tuesday, 7th of November 2017 in Rulindo District, Northen Province in Rwanda. The purpose of the testing was to get the feedback of the technology based on the field farming practices or challenges they face in the farming process. This feedback will help...
Africa’s economy is based largely agriculture and most of them being smallholder farmers. One of the challenges these family farmers face is access to weather information and forecasting services. Lack of access to relevant weather information is due to lack of access of weather source information, dilapidated weather stations that fail to accurately provide reliable weather data, amongst many other reasons. Kukua is an initiative whose vision is to close Africa’s weather information gap by providing new weather station technology and improved weather forecast accuracy. Kukua seeks to...
Farmerline is a social software company with the mission to transform millions of farmers into successful entrepreneurs. Farmerline connects farmers to markets, finance, weather forecast, new farming tips, inputs dealers and equipment services. Farmerline has an information service that sends SMS and voice messages on weather forecasts, market prices, new farming techniques, agrochemical applications, and finance directly to the mobile phones of farmers in local languages. Through their mobile phones, farmers can also connect to global markets and buy farm inpunts and services. Farmers using...
A team under the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) has developed a mobile app that uses artificial intelligence to accurately diagnose crop diseases in the field. The team has won a $US100,000 award to help expand their project to help millions of small-scale farmers across Africa. The app provides advice on all major diseases and pests of root, tuber and banana crops, sends SMS alerts to farmers about potential diseases for their crops and pinpoints the location of the nearest agricultural extension support for farmers. “Smartphones are becoming more and more common...
Electronic Marketing Communication System (EMCS) is an sms service designed to improve communication and exchange for Maize, Soya Bean and Cassava in Cambodia. The service was designed to facilitate communication and exchange between farmers and traders in remote regions of the country. The EMS provided information on market price, pricing trends, potential buyers, product quantity and product quality useful to farmers and traders. The EMCS workflows The Electronic Marketing Communication System (EMCS) workflows were was described as shown below EMCS Workshop-Cambodia from STEM Education...
The World Bank Group, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a new global programme to advance research in digital finance and accelerate digital financial inclusion in developing countries: the Financial Inclusion Global Initiative. The program is composed of two different but complementary work streams: operational and knowledge. The operational work stream supports governments in improving access to financial services and digital financial inclusion...
Esoko, the platform that sends market prices and agricultural tips to farmers will soon retire its brand. After having begun with professional tips sent to farmers through SMS, the Esoko team started to explore innovations on mobile finance for smallholder farmers. In November 2016, Esoko developed a mobile commerce platform that allows farmers to save and borrow toward the purchase of inputs and to sell their crops. Two very different products were now developed, and the team started to face the first challenges. "Our limited management resources were being stretched thin and neither...
mrittikā is a soil nutrient analysis and recommendation software. It works thanks the collaboration of agricultural entrepreneurs and farmers: the entrepreneurs offer soil testing services to the farmers, then analyse the results and finally recommend the best possible fertilizers to the farmers. Farmers in developing countries do not have enough knowledge on the quality and quantity fertilizers for their land. This lack of knowledge also applies to the nutrient levels in their soil. Because of this, farmers end up applying inadequate proportions of fertilizers which eventually leads to poor...
mFish is a set of mobile applications for fishing and aquaculture that educates fishers and connects them to market prices. The app is innovative in the way that it gathers information directly from the fishermen. Many small scale fishers lack the access to vital data such weather data, fish prices at port, fish handling and safety best practices. mFish aims to aggregate and distribute useful content to fishers around the world helping them to be more sustainable in their methods and as a small enterprise. mFish is available on Google Play, Facebook’s Free Basics, and even as a browser based...
Mitra, which stands for Mobile Interventions and Technologies for Rural Areas, is an app providing advice on fertilizer needs and doses for farmers. The app is designed both for farmers and extension workers to advocate site-specific recommendations to farmers on fertilizer dose. Mitra is available both in English and Tamil, so that farmers themselves can access the information on macro and micro nutrient deficiency and remedial measures. The content is based on the latest research by the Department of Agriculture of the Government of Tamil Nadu and the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, in...
