Most farmers in developing countries face the challenge of marketing their produce and most often meet the unpredictable market prices. How can technology help these farmers? We came across the innovative The Maano- Virtual Farmers’ Market (VFM) which is an app-based e-commerce platform designed with farmers needs in mind. This app is the product of World Food Programme’s Innovation Accelerator, an initiative to support potential innovative solutions to solve hunger. In this case, the VFM seeks to provide a transparent, open and trustworthy space for smallholder farmers and buyers to...
Drones are being used in various fields and agriculture is not an exception. Drones are also known as unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and in agriculture there have been used initially in pest control and land use monitoring. T he World Food Progamme (WFP) has been using drones and satellites within the context of food emergency situation. A recent publication on WFP VAM, a SoundCloud of audio recordings, discusses how drones and satellites help in WFP’s work. Two experts are on the interview Sarah Muir, VAM remote sensing analyst, Haidar Baqir, IT engineer, and Ariona Aubrey from WFP's legal...
Rwanda and Estonia are reported to have started to create a professional network between ICT entrepreneurs that could benefit these countries bi-laterally. This follows a working visit by the President of Estonia Her Excellency Kersti Kaljulaid who expressed interest in ICT oriented partnerships in Estonia and Rwanda. She held talks with Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry and visited K-Lab (a center that provides an open space for IT entrepreneurs to collaborate and innovate). More information about the visit here ICTs in agriculture : The Rwanda situation This visit of the Estonian...
The historical developmental path runs from the agricultural to the industrial revolution. When it comes to Africa, the question raised is Run or walk first? In essence, will technology leap frog Africa’s development? The Economist Special Report delves into this debate in-depth. Technology and innovation are a bedrock of development in richer countries and the GDP per person between countries is influenced by productivity. Asian countries – with Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China embraced the world’s largest technologies to build stronger manufacturing economies. However, African countries...
The latest edition of SPORE magazine focuses on COP23 , however it has an article focusing on precision agriculture entitled, ‘Precision agriculture: A smart farming approach to agriculture’. The ability to use smart technologies could make today’s farmers manage their farming practices remotely. For this to happen these technology need access to data usually collected by satellites and drones. The ability of implementing sensors in the field, on animals and in the soil which transmit real time data allows for cost-effective and accurate means to predict and protect the growth of agricultural...
The CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas team won US$100,000 grant to refine a mobile application that uses artificial intelligence to diagnose crop diseases . This new app will attempt to solve the problem of pests and diseases that be face farmers with small holder farmers hardly hit. Its estimated that every year pests and diseases costs billions of dollars to potential agricultural economy as they damage agricultural outputs such as crops, livestock and fish harvests. Technology plays a big role in warning the communities of possible outbreaks and also as a monitoring tool...
This article surmises that in Africa technology can help farmers not lose income by knowing ahead when to sell their produce. Technology can connect farmers to the markets; market failure is an outcome of a communication failure between farmers and markets. The solution of 2KUZE , is a commercial system designed by MasterCard which links farmers and trading in a virtual market place, using text messages on basic mobile phones. This is an example of the many simple technological innovations that can transform agriculture in African countries, and improve income of smallholder farmers. The...
The subject of technology and gender has intrigued many interested with ICTs in agriculture. GSMA recently published a report entitled, “ Mapping the mobile money gender gap: insight from Cote D’lvoire and Mali ”. One of the key findings of the report is that while there has been significant growth in mobile money transfer in the last ten years, there are still wide gender gaps in mobile money account ownership and usage. The report further notes that there is a need for a better strategy to target and reach more women with mobile money services. The study paints a comprehensive picture of...
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...
