The future of farming is satellite SMS.
Live feeds of information straight from satellites to an SMS or smartphone, direct to the world’s poorest farmers. In 2015 we embarked on a joint research project with the Zeitz Foundation to explore how we could help small scale farmers in Kenya improve their food productivity. Important work, beautifully crafted; it’s what Vizzuality is all about.
The idea: smallholders in Kenya get text messages from satellites to help them play with and adopt new, productive, sustainable farming methods. We worked with farmers, using a combination of CartoDB, Twilio and a little Vizzuality magic to build a pioneering prototype that demonstrated the potential of this idea. We wanted to excite the world with the possibilities of using big data in small packages to deliver sustainable livelihoods.
African mobile use is accelerating and globally it is anticipated that 4 billion people will be using internet services through smartphones by 2020.
Across Africa, farmers have to cope with a combination of pressures from climate change impacts, water availability, flooding, and destruction of plants, livestock and buildings from wildlife invasion.
What are people saying about it?
Next project.
Global Forest Watch.