Towards Smartfarming with Smartphones for Local Farmers - Rwanda

This activity empowers Rwandan farmers to use new digital technology to enhance their farming activities, which will in turn enhance water management and crop productivity, thus increasing food security.

Fast facts:

100 members of the Hinga Volcanoes Seed Promotion cooperative have been trained on how to use their smartphones for maize and Irish potato data collection;
Data collected is related to fertilizers, rainfall, crop diseases and soil quality;
3 staff members and 10 students from the Ruhengeri Institute of Applied Sciences have been trained on the use of smartphones for crop data collection and database building, to help speed up training for farmers.

The problem

The agriculture sector is considered to be the backbone of the Rwandan economy. It contributes to 36% of the total GDP and it employs more than 80% of the total population. However, the sector is fragile and is characterized by a lack of modern farming technology, which is an essential tool for agricultural development. One of the biggest challenges facing Rwandan farmers is mastering and applying new digital technology such as smartphones/tablets and drones in their farming activities.

The solution

This activity builds on existing ICT infrastructures in Rwanda such as a 2,500-kilometer optic fiber cable, Internet data center, wireless broadband, broadband internet and various telecommunication companies. So far, local farmers have received training on how to collect crop data using GPS and a data collection app installed in their smartphones.

Helping the planet

This activity promotes sustainable agricultural land management and water storage.

Helping people

Farmers’ associations are trained on the use of standard smartphones/tablets, drones and Remote Sensing and related applications to modernize their farming and water storage /and use activities. Primarily, the project beneficiaries are Urugaga Imbaraga cooperative, Hinga Volcanoes Seed Promotion (HVSP) and the project involves also different institutions namely, Ruhengeri Institute of Applied Sciences (INES-Ruhengeri) and Faculty of Geo information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, The Netherlands.

Scaling Up

The next step for this activity is to create a database and train farmers on how to conduct analysis and data management. It also wants to increase the number of trainees in the future.