Rural mobile connectivity is still poor in Africa, according to the GSMA Mobile Economy Africa 2016 Report. Mobile connectivity can help smallholders get access to relevant market information and financial services, which are essential for their development. Affordability is another key issue, as the report states that in countries such as Chad and Niger, for example, "mobile broadband represents around 200% of the annual income of the bottom 20% of the population." Nevertheless, mobile financial services are hugely important in sub-saharan Africa, with the region representing 63% of active...
Can technology help family famers in the developing world? The story of Coconut farmers in the Philippines does offer answers to this question. Philippines has more than 3.5 million coconut farmers and most of them are communal farmers. Most abject poverty in the world is concentrated in farming communities, and technology can open up new opportunities for family farmers . While more than 90% of farms are run by an individual or a family and they produce about 80% of the world's food occupying around 70-80% of farm land. In the Philippines, where mobile penetration is 50 percent and...
KrishiSuchak is a WhatsApp-like app developed by Bangalore-based startup Nubesol Technologies to permit smallholders to message agricultural scientist to ask them for advice on their yields, thus eliminating spatial barriers between extension services. Farmers can send their queries either as text, a photo or a record of their voices to the extension officers. Farmers can now get advice via Krishi Shuchak from agronomists by sending only a picture of the damaged crop. The scientist then responds to the query by identifying the problem and then giving advice on the pests to use in order to...
From 27 February till 2 March 2017 - the 2017 World Mobile Congress will take place in Barcelona, Spain. Mobile World Congress is the world’s largest gathering for the mobile industry, organised by the GSMA and held in the Mobile World Capital Barcelona. If you have the occassion to participate in...
THOUSANDS of smallholder farmers in the region are set to benefit from a digital platform connecting them to agents, buyers and banks in East Africa. Launched by Mastercard , 2KUZE, as the platform is known, is the latest offering in the region hailed as the cradle of African technology innovation. The agricultural technology app was developed at Mastercard's Nairobi Labs for Financial Inclusion with the support of the Gates Foundation. 2KUZE’s primary value proposition is connecting farmers, agents, and buyers on a digital platform toward greater pricing transparency and more effective...
Mobile has the most potential to improve the income of smallholder farmers in developing countries in Africa, India and the Middle East. The up take of mobile technology (and m obile penetration rate ) for agricultural and rural development in the Global South has been on the increase. Connected Agriculture , is a report by Accenture and Vodafone on the role of mobile in driving efficiency and sustainability in the food and agriculture value chain, focuses on 12 opportunities that deliver broad socio-economic and environmental benefits. The report hinges its proposal on the fact that mobile...
10,000 years of agricultural evolution can be largely grouped into just four development eras: Paleothic (early domestication of plants and animals), Antiquity (roughly the 2000 years BCE, in which more efficient farming systems were developed), the Modern Era (roughly 1700 to 1900 when mechanization and fertilizers emerged) and the Green Revolution (1930s-60s, when transformative crop genetics and fertilization practices developed). As with so many things, the pace of change- even in agriculture- is increasing rapidly, and it turns out that even agriculture is not immune to the changes of...
From 27 February till 2 March 2017 - the 2017 World Mobile Congress will take place in Barcelona, Spain. Mobile World Congress is the world’s largest gathering for the mobile industry, organised by the GSMA and held in the Mobile World Capital Barcelona. If you have the occassion to participate in...