Farmers are among poor people in many developing countries who grapple with agricultural challenges to make little progress in their lives. There are cases where they are conned and mislead during the selling season by unscrupulous middlemen. They normally lack market information. However experts believe that incorporation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in agriculture could be of great advantage to farmers…
ICT is an opportunity that needs to tempt into active food production value chain. So far, there are many mobile telephone farming innovations that is a manifestation of a true revolution in the country’s agricultural production.
However, despite the fact that many farmers and entrepreneurs use ICT in different developed countries in the world, it is not always clear and simple to youth in Tanzania particularly, on how they could apply ICT in agriculture to make farming an easier and a more interesting job due to several factors including low level of technology growing in their country compared to other countries.
Revenues from the mobile sector feature largely in the estimated 20 per cent that the ICT sector contributes to some of most ICT user countries including Kenya whereas the economy to some extent depending much on ICT.
Millions of people, the majority of them being farmers across the developing countries including Tanzania do not have access to banking services.
Tanzania which has a population of over 40 million, is one of the world’s poorest countries with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of USD 1,400 and its economic growth however, is strong with annual GDP growth rate of 6-7 percent.
Tanzanian economy is heavily dependent on agriculture which makes 40 percent of GDP, 85 percent of exports and 80 percent of employment.
Following the share of experiences from other technological advanced countries, different mobile companies in the country have started to show interests to initiate mobile agriculture to empower farmers in Tanzania on the use of ICT in agriculture.
Mobile companies in the country can add mobile agriculture to be one of their corporate responsibility to the community because of the majority of Tanzania population are farmers, mobile agriculture must be identified by mobile companies as a great opportunity for their prosperity.
Femi Adewunmi an agricultural researcher noted 12 ways how mobile technology can boost African agriculture and these are Mobile payment systems, Micro-insurance systems, Micro-lending platforms, Mobile information platforms, and farmer helplines.
Other ways according to her are, Smart logistics, Traceability and tracking systems, Mobile management of supplier networks, Mobile management of distribution networks, Agricultural trading platforms, Agricultural tendering platforms and Agricultural bartering platforms.
Recognizing this opportunity, TIGO Tanzania has vowed to invest in mobile agriculture in its programme known as Tigo Kilimo due to a big population engaged in agriculture.
In the agricultural sector, annual grow is only four percent indicating a lagging of agricultural productivity.
Leveraging on this key insight and the big growth of mobile telephony in recent years (currently at 43 percent) Tigo has decided to develop a market centered information system providing: weather forecasts, agronomy best practices and market prices for the major crops grown in the country.
The special programme manager of Tigo Kilimo, Yaya N’djore says that this programme will ultimately be available through three key mobile channels which are unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)/SMS, Integrated Voice Response (IVR) and Call center.
N’djore says “Tigo Kilimo service has gone through a round of regional pilots and surveys with moderate success, the goal being to deploy it over the entire country” adding that the results in the pilot show that one farmer can request ten to 15 times per week.
The manager noted that Tigo Kilimo programme initiative will help farmers provide information of market and price to farmers who are over 60 percent conducting their activities in villages where more information on weather, market, price and transport is needed to enable them to do well in the sector.
He said that any information of Tigo kilimo to farmers through their mobile phones on market, price, weather, will be coming from recognized ministries and government sectors while will help to sweep away middle people who tend to con farmers on their products especially on prices.
He affirmed that the programme will work closely with the ministry of agriculture and ministry of Trade to give correct information needed by farmers as he noted that farmers are lagging behind in development because of lack of adequate information.
According to him, the information will be very cheap as 249 shilling per week and would enable the farmer to receive the information three times a week.
Although the company has promised such incentive to farmers to help them to match with information world, many villages in Tanzania are challenged with network and electricity. To solve this and help villagers (farmers) to access information, N’djore said that Tigo has prepared well to enable villagers to get the services by solar panels as the initiative to them to get markets and price information.
Networks in villages have improved, towers and boosters are added in villages something that will help much network coverage in rural areas where farmers are found.
He further said that his company has come up with health insurance scheme known as (Tigo Bima) aimed at helping farmers in their pursuit for better health stating that the move could correct a perception that insurance was just for rich people.
Currently Tigo Bima is operating in Dar es Salaam where the service has a network with 28 hospitals and expected to expand to other regions
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