Farmerline

Empowering farmers via mobile technology
2016 SAG-SEED Awards; SWITCH-Africa Green
Green Technologies
Kumasi
Ghana

Farmerline’s software MERGDATA reaches farmers via mobile technology that is adapted to the local context and shares empowering information in mass quantities in voice or SMS format. Business activities include licensing the software, surveying tools and database to organizations (B2B) as well as direct sales of content services to farmers (B2F), and have resulted in USD 300,000 of revenues in the past year.

Farmerline also provides financial services to increase farmers’ access to savings and loans and additionally offers literacy training and workshops on how to access, understand and implement agronomic best practices.

Eco-Inclusive Impacts
Farmerline helps to transform rural smallholder farmers into successful entrepreneurs by delivering data and services that improve productivity, decisions, practices, crop outputs, income and livelihoods, leading to employment opportunities and increased income.
  • Empowering farmers through education, knowledge and improved income from better agricultural practices and market information.
  • Offering employment opportunities and increased income for market price collectors and surveyors and for a network of up to 100 sales agents by the end of 2016.

  • Providing localized data that increase farmer’s ability to adapt to climate changes, increasingly unpredictable periods of rain and drought as well as showing agricultural best practices.
  • Enabling inventory tracking that reduces inefficiencies and wasted crops.

 

  • Reaching >200,000 smallholder farmers across 5 countries over the last 3 years with relevant information to improve their entrepreneurial success.
  • Delivering data and services that improve productivity, decision on planting and harvest, agricultural practices, crop outputs, income and livelihoods of rural farmers.

Partners

Farmerline provides information and services needed by farmers like best agronomic practices, weather data, literacy training and market prices through its developed mobile software technology. The localized data help transform smallholder farmers into successful entrepreneurs and mitigate some of the harmful effects from climate change.

Farmerline Ltd works on software development and distributes software and related services.

ARMAJARO = ECOM, an investment firm, currently uses Farmerline’s technology to collect, store and analyse data while mapping farms.

MEDA, an initiative seeking to empower female agricultural workers, uses Farmerline’s messaging service to provide information on sustainable households and food insecurity.