Smartphones and agriculture: are the times ripe in Uganda?

@Pexels/Ketut Subiyanto

According to Dr Charles Malingu, Director of Innovations and ICT at the ExcelHort Consult and agribusiness Incubation Centre in Mbarara, Uganda, if the youth are to be enticed into embracing agriculture, then there is one tool that they can be hooked with: the smartphone! Malingu explains that the phone must be turned into a major farming tool. “We are using the phone to predict weather for example” he says.

Additionally, a smartphone can also be used to keep records of the farm. “Unfortunately, very few Ugandans use smartphones to their maximum technical abilities,” Malingu says. At the Centre, in Mbarara, they are using the smartphone to carry out extension services with farmers.

“We give them weather predictions using the phone,” he says. Farmers are also able to monitor market rates, get planting tips and even identify pests and diseases using their phones.

According to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), there are over 20million active phones in Uganda, with over 5milion of these being smartphones. However, the number of active farmers with smartphones is not known.