With an estimated income of more than $100 billion annually, agriculture remains Africa’s largest sector. Agricultural production in Africa continues to increase gradually and is almost at par with South America.

However, as Africans become more tech savvy, innovations are on the rise as technology experts turn their attention to creating mobile solutions for the modern farmer.

Analysts have shown that by 2025 half of Africa’s population will have internet access with about 360 million smartphones on the continent.

Also based on their estimation, internet technology could increase annual agricultural productivity in Africa by $3 billion per annum.

Nowadays, it is almost common knowledge that smartphones and apps have the potential to help farmers increase their yields and revenue.

Mobile services (voice, SMS, simple data) are perfect for areas where infrastructure and financial limitations prevent broadband Internet.

They are already playing a valuable role in African agricultural markets, in many cases only two years after introduction.

Of course, many farmers still lack access to these relatively new mobile opportunities. Expect that to rapidly change in the next few years as mobile costs are driven down, as governments create agricultural frameworks, and as private business realizes the tremendous opportunity at hand.



With an estimated income of more than $100 billion annually, agriculture remains Africa’s largest sector. Agricultural production in Africa continues to increase gradually and is almost at par with South America.

However, as Africans become more tech savvy, innovations are on the rise as technology experts turn their attention to creating mobile solutions for the modern farmer.

Analysts have shown that by 2025 half of Africa’s population will have internet access with about 360 million smartphones on the continent.

Also based on their estimation, internet technology could increase annual agricultural productivity in Africa by $3 billion per annum.

Nowadays, it is almost common knowledge that smartphones and apps have the potential to help farmers increase their yields and revenue.

Mobile services (voice, SMS, simple data) are perfect for areas where infrastructure and financial limitations prevent broadband Internet.

They are already playing a valuable role in African agricultural markets, in many cases only two years after introduction.

Of course, many farmers still lack access to these relatively new mobile opportunities. Expect that to rapidly change in the next few years as mobile costs are driven down, as governments create agricultural frameworks, and as private business realizes the tremendous opportunity at hand.



Here is a list of how African developers, governments, and organizations operating in Africa are harnessing mobile technology to improve agricultural practices. Private companies, budding IT entrepreneurs, NGOs, as well as governments are all involved in a variety of mobile phone-based products, services, and applications aimed at boosting small-scale agriculture.



Farmcrowdy

This is Nigeria’s digital Agriculture Platform focused on connecting farm sponsors with real farmers. Farmcrowdy gives Nigerians the opportunity to invest in Agriculture by selecting the kind of farms they want to sponsor.

Farmcrowdy uses investors funds secure the land, engage the farmer, plant the seeds, insure the farmers and farm produce, complete the full farming cycle, sell the harvest and then pay the investor a return for their investment.



WeFarm

WeFarm is a free peer-to-peer service that enables farmers to share information via SMS, without the internet and without having to leave their farm. Farmers can ask questions on farming and receive crowd-sourced answers from other farmers around the world in minutes.

SALI

(Sustainable Agricultural Livelihood Innovation) done in Mbeere, Embu by Christian Aid, uses mobile phone technology to notify farmers of weather updates.

SANGONeT

Sangonet allows small-scale dairy farmers in East Africa to record the lactation history of their cows.



CocoaLink

This app launched by the Ghana Cocoa Board, Hershey, and World Cocoa Foundation, connects cocoa farmers with information about good farming practices. The free service uses SMS and voice.



Infotrade

This is a platform built to integrate collection, analysis and dissemination of agricultural and other market information especially in Uganda.

(WOUGNET) Women of Uganda Network aims at promoting and supporting the use of ICTs by women in Uganda. One of their projects known as “Enhancing Access to Agricultural Information (EAAI)” targets rural women farmers in Northern Uganda.

The Mayuge Farmers Exchange provides farmers with access to email communication and information for learning best practice farming.

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CountrySTAT

This is a web-based information technology system for food and agriculture statistics at the national and subnational levels has launched in at least 16 African nations.

iCow

The iCow platform has a series of dairy agri products that are available over a simple menu system.

Farmers dial a short code, *285#, and access a simple menu that guides them on how to subscribe to the various products. After subscribing, the system sends messages to users at intervals – depending on the product choice.

iCow’s objective is to increase farmer productivity through access to knowledge and experts and to encourage the development of a younger generation of farmers.



Rural eMarket

This platform developed for rural Africa is a simple yet powerful solution to communicate market information, using smartphones, tablets or computers. Rural eMarket is multi-lingual, easy, quick to adopt, and most of all, affordable for most rural projects. The use of appropriate ICT solutions can improve transparency and access to market information and transform the livelihoods of rural populations.

mFisheries

mFisheries is a suite of open-source mobile and web applications for small scale fisheries. It was developed at the University of the West Indies with International Development Research Centre (IDRC) support and comprises a virtual marketplace application, which displays market prices using open data. There is also the ‘Got Fish Need Fish application’ which, in real time, connects agents in the fisheries value chain. It includes navigational tools such as a compass and a GPS logging and retrieval application, as well as training companions including abbreviated first aid lessons from courses delivered by the Caribbean Fisheries Training and Development Institute.

Esoko

Esoko is Africa’s most popular mAgric platform for tracking and sharing market intelligence. “We have a range of apps that you can choose from to suit your needs,” they state. It links farmers to markets with automatic market prices and offers from buyers, disseminate personalised extension messages based on crop & location, and manages extension officers and lead farmers with SMS messaging. Esoko is a totally customisable comprehensive platform designed to transform how you manage your information needs – all bundled into one easy-to-use interface, and backed up with a unique deployment team to help you anywhere.

Fashiba an app by Esoko is a simple and easy mobile money solution that allows smallholder farmers to lay-away and borrow money to purchase the right inputs at the right time. With Fasiba, Esoko brings together input suppliers, financial institutions and farmers in a virtual marketplace to provide a new way for rural communities to get what they want, when they need it.

Insyt also developed by esoko helps farmers recruit field agents and carry out research through customized software development for Android and web, call centre surveys, and agent recruitment, training and management.

FarmerConnect

The FarmerConnect platform is a cloud-based and mobile-enabled platform that delivers personalised agricultural extension services and text/audio information intelligence in local languages to smallholders and farmers who otherwise do not have access to- or can comprehend information from traditional sources. This service helps them stay connected with the information and aiding agencies on a daily basis, increase their yields/incomes, and reduce hunger, poverty and under-nutrition. FarmerConnect, in a nutshell, is a one-stop market place for agricultural communities, including service seekers (Farmers), service enablers (Government, NGO and Private agencies) and service providers (Agronomists, Markets Trackers, Weather Stations etc.).

M-Shamba

M-Shamba is an interactive platform that provides information to farmers through the use of a mobile phone. M-shamba utilises the various features of a mobile phone, including cross-platform applications accessible in phones, and SMS to provide information on production, harvesting, marketing, credit, weather and climate. It also provides customised information to farmers based on their location and crop/animal preference. Farmers can also share information on various topics with each other. M-shamba is currently being used by 4000 rice farmers in Kenya to help them adopt new technologies in rice farming.

Mobile Agribiz

Mobile Agribiz (mogribu.com) is a web and SMS mobile application that helps farmers decide when and how to plant crops, select the best crops for a given location using climate and weather data, and connect to the available market. It helps connect farmers to buyers, and helps them to source important, relevant information (e.g. how to plant crops, how to use fertilizers) and necessary data aggregates (e.g. weather, crop pricing) from various sources. Farmers can easily connect with customers by sending an SMS with their phone number, information on goods, prices and quantities fort sale. This information is plotted into a map on servers, enabling customers to see farmers’ information, the goods they are selling, their quantities and location, and make a connection.


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