Smartphones and mobile apps play an important role in helping countries to overcome some of these problems.
In fact, today, with the advancements in technology, what we are witnessing is that these improvements are allowing a sector, like the farming community, the opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and insight all through an application that can be downloaded on smartphones. This is proving very successful if you consider that many farmers are in areas that are often hindered by poor infrastructure and/or financial restrictions. Certainly, the appeal of these apps is not limited to merely developing countries, but has even helped to make the lives of First World farmers a little easier.
So what are the apps that have led this change and what are some of the ways that they have positively impacted on the lives of farmers and assisted in supply and production?
In America, there is a free mobile app that assists dairy farmers with monthly financial planning by tracking feed costs and income.
The DairyCents app (1) helps farmers to estimate income over feed cost per cow. This, in turn, provides an indication of exactly how much money is left to pay other expenses. The app also lets farmers compare the costs of feed. This leads to greater volumes of production and overall cost saving for the farmers.
As many farmers don't exactly have an "office space", it is no surprise that apps have become attractive business tools for agriculture. They are being used to track irrigation, monitor soil quality, record herd information and track weather conditions.
In San Joaquin Valley, California (2), an area that tends to face water shortages, a farmer who specialises in cotton, tomatoes, onions, pistachios and wine grapes does so with the help of a mobile app that tracks his water usage to manage irrigation effectively. The app tells the amount of water going into a particular field and what the state of the soil is in the area. As the ground gets wet, the app provides the farmer with a graph that shows precise wetting patterns.
Agricultural app development in Africa has formed out of necessity to help reduce starvation and poverty initiatives already underway, and the high volume of mobile users in Africa makes the app space in the market perfect.
Making the impossible possible, farmers in Ghana can now use their mobile phones to send a text message to find out about crop prices in Accra, which is over 400km away (3). Furthermore, a UK company (4) has developed an app that helps farmers in Kenya monitor and protect their greenhouse crops from changing weather conditions, pests, and overheating.
The app allows farmers to control and monitor plants in their greenhouses remotely, by maintaining consistent crop temperatures. Additional smart farm features are planned, including temperature and humidity sensors that can enhance the growth and health of crops while reducing the amount of water and energy required.
The benefits and opportunities of mobile growth in agriculture will far outweigh any operational costs - and can provide a real solution for farmers - which, in turn, will impact on world food problems and possibly help with shortage problems.
To this end, in January this year, SEACOMM (5) announced that it would be providing funding towards the development of a new Swahili and English-language application for Tanzanian farmers, which will collect market information on commodity prices across a number of major markets and help farmers to secure the best possible prices for their produce.
By continuing to improve the quality of life in some of the world's poorest countries, investors and app developers can provide inexpensive access to mobile content that can offer innovative solutions that help solve local problems.
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