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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Open Source Software for Agriculture and Nutrition
  • Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:08:13 -0600

Innovation of the Week: Open Source Software for Agriculture and Nutrition
WorldWatch Blogs Nourishing the Planet
By Mara Schechter
http://blogs.worldwatch.org/innovation-of-the-week-open-source-software-for-agriculture-and-nutrition/

Communication and information technology (ICT) are helping farmers access
information about market prices and weather through text messaging, or SMS,
on their cell phones. And a newer trend, open source technology, provides
tools for organizations to take advantage of and scale up this technology.

Freely available, open source platforms like these are helping organizations
spread messages, connect farmers to one another, track trends, and effect
change. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

Open source (meaning the source code is publicly available for free) software
is helping organizations reach small farmers and rural communities. NGOs can
do this at low cost, on a large scale, and without an Internet connection.
More people in the developing world have access to their cell phones than to
the Internet, making cell phones an important information tool.

Created to help NGOs working in developing countries, FrontlineSMS enables
users to send out and collect messages to and from groups of people, with
only a laptop with a cell phone plugged in. Organizations can use this
software not only to get in touch with people in need in places without
Internet access, but also to take surveys, hold competitions, coordinate with
other staff members, and run campaigns.

Ken Banks created the software, along with other initiatives under the
umbrella of kiwanja.net, which focuses on “empower[ing] local, national and
international non-profit organizations to make better use of information and
communications technology in their work.” Many case studies demonstrate how
organizations have used FrontlineSMS for all kinds of purposes, including
monitoring elections, but most relevant here are the agricultural and health
projects that the software has helped to run.

Dr. Robert Fitzgerald, Associate Dean of Research at the University of
Canberra in Australia, found that small farmers in Cambodia lacked access to
market prices, and wanted to help them be “in a stronger position to
negotiate the sale of their crop.” He has developed two programs in Cambodia
where small farmers can text a main server to find out information about
crops, pest warnings, market prices, weather, and meetings.

Fitzgerald chose FrontlineSMS as a messaging system because it ensured that
the project could be self-sustaining. He explained, “Because the project is
working with two NGOs based in western Cambodia, it was imperative that we
implemented a cost-effective solution that could be managed by local staff.”
He found that FrontlineSMS was “simple to install and maintain.”

In Kenya, KickStart, which produces manually operated pumps for small farmers
to irrigate their farms efficiently, also uses FrontlineSMS. KickStart uses
the program to keep in contact with farmers and to reach out to prospective
consumers of the pumps, who have already expressed interest at stores selling
the products.

Also in Kenya, two radio stations have begun using FrontlineSMS to reach out
to listeners. John Cheburet, the radio producer for The Organic Farmer, a
Kenyan magazine that has started two radio shows, wanted his radio shows to
involve a two-way dialogue among his audience of small farmers. Radio is
still the best way to get in touch with the most people in Africa; up to 90
percent of households own a radio. Yet with mobile phone use rapidly growing,
Cheburet has used FrontlineSMS to answer questions he gets from text messages
while on the show, which has helped farmers identify common livestock
problems and work together to solve them.

And Winrock International has incorporated FrontlineSMS into its Farmer to
Farmer program in El Salvador. It works with a local nonprofit, FIAGRO, the
Agricultural Technology Innovation Foundation, which has begun using the
software to link farmers directly to buyers and get better prices for their
crops.

UNICEF Innovation has created a similar open source platform called RapidSMS.
The program is part of the Open Mobile Consortium, which provides multiple
technologies aimed at helping NGOs and nonprofits. RapidSMS currently
requires a computer with a certain kind of hardware installed and a landline.
So far, UNICEF has used RapidSMS to monitor food distribution after droughts
in Ethiopia and to help improve the process of tracking the nutritional
trends of Malawian children.

Freely available, open source platforms like these are helping organizations
spread messages, connect farmers to one another, track trends, and effect
change. Can you think of other similar innovations? Let us know in the
comments section!




  • [Livingontheland] Open Source Software for Agriculture and Nutrition, Tradingpost, 09/27/2011

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