Proceedings discussion No

Placidius Rwechungura, GreenApp, United Republic of Tanzania

My name is Placidius Rwechungura from Tanzania.

I once took loan from the bank and I went to invest into farming after hearing from my friends that agriculture pays a lot. I am sorry to say that my money went for nothing and i ended up paying the loan without getting any yields from my farm.

What I want to say here is that, I invested in farm without having any knowledge in the crops i invested. I was supposed to have knowledge and then invest while learning.

Now I have come up with an idea that can help many African youths to engage into farming by using technology. I have developed a mobile app that is also a web based system and does the following.

Help farmers to adapt Climate Smart Agriculture by providing real time personalized crop advisory based on current & forecast weather.

GreenApp (www.greenapp.co.tz) provides accurate weather forecast (Temperature, Humidity, Wind Speed & Direction, and Rainfall etc.) and is unique app as it is user friendly.

It can be viewed, read, and it can herd. By doing so, GreenApp aims to tackle three main objectives:

Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes; adapting and building resilience to climate change and Reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas emissions, where possible.

GreenApp is strong software as it has videos that are collected from successful farmers and farm experts explaining step by step procedures on how to apply farm inputs and how to go about a certain crop.

The app will also allow people as individuals and registered companies to own online shops which will give them access to sell their products and people will have an option to buy and sell by using Visa, MasterCard and Mobile transfer known as MPESA.

There will also be agro shops which will be selling farm inputs like seeds, fertilizers, chemicals location wise.

There will be live market prices that will be displayed according to the location.

Each and every government will benefit for the information obtained from the App as it is having an AI (Artificial Intelligence) that will be running behind the app by collecting data and doing analysis.

The GreenApp AI will be able to predict the nature of disease affecting the crops and animals by scanning and mapping the available pictures and data and thereafter advise the type of pesticides to be applied and where to get it from.

It will be able to predict that by the coming year a certain country will be in need of buying a certain amount of farm inputs like fertilizers, it will also be able to predict the type of diseases that affects the animals and plants by just taking a photo and submit to the application.

The GreenApp AI will be able to predict the quality of products, the quantity, the market analysis and demand.

GreenApp will link farmers in a nearby location cultivating the same crops to share ideas on how to tackle some challenges and share success.

It will have a social media part whereby farmers will follow successful people and get some updates and learn from them, comment and share the success.

GreenApp will bring together all farm experts online to assist some farmers in case they need assistance and it will link some farmers and herders with insurance companies, banks for financial assistance and insurance companies and law firms.

The application will link farmers and herders with legal advisors location wise for the purpose of helping especially widows ho have a challenge in owning land and any farmer and herder land conflicts.

The App will be used by Banks and Insurance companies to manage and get daily reports from small farmers, middle farmers and nuclear farmers.

Isaac Woja, PRO Enterprises, South Sudan

I am Isaac Woja from South Sudan.

I love farming because it gives me some pride in seeing that people get satisfied and become happy of my work. This is what motivates me more than the monetary benefits. My experience as a youth farmer in South Sudan is both bitter and sweet. Bitter in that there are huge challenges for one to succeed in farming as a business. There is poor technology right from the varieties, and execution of the production processes which are commonly done manually. The infrastructure in terms of roads and telecommunication network is poor across the country, making it difficult to access the market or even inputs. Of course the wars that have caused massive displacements making it insecure to access some of the potential production sites. Nontheless the sweet version is that, there are huge resources to tap in and make money out of it; land is available in plenty, the market once accessed is too big to satisfy.

My major achievements are that I have pioneered hydroponic fodder for feeding improved breeds of pigs (landraces, Largewhite, camborough and duroc). Now planning to establish a better unit for production of the fodder and also import wheat, being the best compared to maize and sorghum. I have also succeeded in drip irrigation for dry season vegetable production both in a greenhouse and in the open. I did it during the last dry season and am now strategizing for the coming season (Dec - April) for the Juba market when vegetables will be fewer in the market.

If given a chance, I would ask these;

a) How would you bring on board youths that are jobless and are more interested in work that pays them instantly, not like farming that takes months. For example they are more interested in charcoal burning.

b) How would you change the minds of armed youths into farming as a business instead of robberies or raiding livestock

c) In a country like south Sudan where telecommunication and internet is yet underdeveloped, how would you still make good use of the limited available resources

d) How would you make employment through farming as a business sustainable in the rural areas where there are poor infrastructure and lack of financial credit services for financing production activities.