In India’s southern state of Kerala, because of overfishing and climate change, fish stocks are rapidly decreasing. In order to catch more fish, fishermen are forced to go out into the open sea with their small boats, risking life especially during the monsoon season. Radio Monsoon radio station provides a low-tech forecast service to encourage 30,000 families to fish more safely. Radio Monsoon’s forecasts are disseminated through social media, loudspeakers placed in harbours and through a phone line supported by an internet server. The weather data is based on India’s Meteorological...
Yara ImageIT is a smartphone app designed to measure nitrogen uptake in a crop and generate a nitrogen recommendation based on photographs of the crop. ImageIT calculates nitrogen uptake based on leaf cover, leaf green color and estimated fraction of brown leaves. The app also generates an intelligent recommendation for adjusting the fertilization program based on measurements. ImageIT is user-friendly and flexible in terms of technical requirements: it works with low resolution images with a file size as small as 50 – 200 KB. If internet coverage is poor, ImageIT can save the photos on the...
Nigeria has one of the largest inventories of uncultivated farmland on earth, but they are losing crops in volumes because of labor shortages and lack of mechanization.” according to Jehiel Oliver, CEO of Hello Tractor. Many smallholder farmers cannot afford to pay someone else for high-season help. Owning a tractor would solve many of those problems. The first part of the business is the small, 15 horsepower tractor itself that Hello Tractor sells at $4,000, 10 times cheaper than the average tractor found in Africa. Each tractor comes with a GPS tracking device, so that its position can be...
Over 90% of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 million smallholder farmers lack access to formal credit. Although agriculture accounts for around 65% of employment and 32% of gross domestic product, less than 6% of commercial loan recipients are smallholder farmers. The problem is on both sides: on the one hand, farmers cannot purchase quality inputs to improve their production, on the other hand, financial institutions cannot provide loans without an accurate assessment of the farmers’ financial viability. Farmers are therefore left with little access to credit, and financial institutions with a hole...
In Ghana, the agricultural north supplies food to buyers in the south. The travel is mostly done by car and takes up a lot of time. Also, these long journeys are done carrying large sums of money, as the north suffers from a lack of banks. To face the issue of large money trandactions across the country, the ADVANCE II Project (Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement) has developed a mobile money solution as it diminishes the threat of theft, ensures efficient payment and offers the access to financial services such as savings, insurance, and credit. USAID ’s ADVANCE II Project...
In Uganda, the spread of agronomical information is quite challenging, and the number of extension officers cannot meet the growing demand from farmers who often need immediate assistance. Thanks to innovations in information technology, mobile and web-based platforms are proving to be a huge help. m-Omulimisa provides smallholder farmers with real-time farming information and solutions written in local languages via mobile technologies. Farmers can use their phones to ask questions in languages that they understand, and receive understandable feedback from extension officers in the region...
There are about 500 million small-scale farmers on Earth, and most of them live on less than $1 a day. They’re often separated from larger population centers, or lack the means to educate themselves on specialized farming methods. Internet connections might be less common in the developing world, but mobile technology is pervasive. Today, 90% of smallholder farmers are able to access a basic mobile phone. In Africa especially, people have turned directly to mobiles instead of owning first personal computers. WeFarm is a peer-to-peer (P2P) knowledge sharing platform for small-scale farmers in...
Mdiet is an application designed for smartphones and tablets providing essential knowledge on the Mediterranean diet. What is the Mediterranean diet?, which kind of food does it include exactly?, what are its recipes? Mdiet provides an answer to all these questions. The human right to access to food, established in 2000 by the Millennium Summit of the United Nations , goes through proper nutrition for good health. The Mediterranean Diet is an essential element to achieve these goals and that is why it was declared an Intangible Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO in 2010. The 300 type foods...
The USAID’s Ghana Sustainable Fisheries Management Project (SFMP) signed a partnership agreement with the Ghana Fisheries Commission and Tigo Ghana called "Tigo Fishers Network Initiative." which aims to provide fisher folk with tailored mobile solutions using Tigo platform. In Ghana, 10 per cent of the population work directly or indirectly in the fishing sector, which generates over one billion dollars in revenue annually and accounts for at least 4.5 per cent of Ghana's GDP. Photo Credits: stopillegalfishing.com Tigo Fisheries Network will provide fisher folk information access on best...
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in conjuction with the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources and the Ministry of Youth and ICT has launched a new project called ' Agricultural Services and Digital Inclusion in Rwanda ". Mobile applications in this project This project is set to develop four mobile applications: "Cure and feed your livestock","eNtrifood","Weather and crop calendar"and "AgriMarketplace". The applications centre around the four themes - animal health and feed,weather and climate change adaptation services, nutrition and agricultural market. These Apps will be...
