East and South African countries

With support from AGRA to Image-AD in helping farmers collect and share agriculture data seamlessly using mobile phone devices which

is aimed at integrating value chain actors in the agricultural sector, the mfarms platform from Image-AD has networked thousands of farmers to many actors across borders.

Participants in total were trained on mFarms, mSurvey and MiPAD for both input and output business. All eight modules of the mfarms platform and mSurvey was demonstrated to participants for which they took part in activities both in-house and on the field. Some of these exercises were:

1. How to Profile various actors
2. How to group or categorize profiles actors e.g. Farmers and communicate with them through the platform
3. How to provide extension services to farmers via SMS and IVR tools embedded into the mFarms platform

Participants were trained on the use of the mSurvey platform to collect data from the field for analysis and report generation. Participants during the training:

1. Developed various forms they use for data collection in their offices with the platform with features like Image and GPS to check data integrity and also provide evidence for the carried out activity.
2. Saved and uploaded their forms to the platform
3. Downloaded their forms on their mobile phones and collected data
4. Analyzed the collected data and generated reports on them.

All teams visited farmers on the field who happened to be farmers some of the FBO’s who attended the training were working with. These farmers were profiled by participants themselves as they were trained on how to carry out the activity.