For most parts of Africa, the
agriculture sector is a major source of employment. During the ICT4Ag
conference in Kigali, Rwanda, stakeholders joined innovators and
inventors to reflect on solutions and innovation targeted at users within this important
sector. IT News Africa takes a look at ten of the best agriculture apps
present at this year’s conference.
The iCow platform has a series of
dairy agri products that are available over a simple menu system (Image source:
iCow)
1. 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.
Developed for rural Africa, Rural
eMarket 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. However, there are many regions in Africa that do not benefit
from these new technologies because of illiteracy, the weakness of connectivity
or the inability to find an affordable and adapted solution.
3. 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.
4. 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.
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.
Such 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, hosts 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.).
6. 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 both smart and low-end phones,
and SMS to provide information on production, harvesting, marketing, credit,
weather and climate. It 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 (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.
8. AgroSim
AgroSim is a valuable tool
for decision-making in agricultural projects. It works primarily on data
collected online and provides a virtual representation of the different stages
of crop growth and development as would be the case in reality. It
is an event simulator able to anticipate the quality and quantity of the
productivity of a desired crop by taking into account data related to seed, soil,
hydraulic climate, geography, macro-economy and the demographic of the targeted
area.
Created to be used on all platforms (locally, online, on Smartphone and
Android) and built with artificial intelligence to cater for the increasingly
demanding needs of this industry, Agrosim is an adaptable and portable
application which is universally used by both novices and professionals in the
agricultural sector.
Developed by Access.mobile,
amAgriculture is an analytical tool that helps agri-businesses understand
underlying business trends, manage transactions, cut costs, increase revenues
and mitigate risk. Core product features include agricultural input data
collection and management; agricultural output data collection and
management; transactional data tracking from agent transactions with
farmers in cooperatives/network; web-based and mobile
analytics; web-based push/pull SMS system for agents and farmer
communication; and data export capabilities in Microsoft Excel.
Farming Instructor is a mobile app
that provides online and offline agricultural information (text, speeches and
animations) to farmers and their communities. The application is created
specifically to inspire youth and all other groups in the society to have the
passion to engage in agriculture as the means to self-employment. With this
app, the user or farmer can source all the necessary information related
to agriculture, as well as share and comment on other farming tips and
advice.
