The recently announced fund will encourage mobile communications service providers, in partnership with public and private sector agriculture organizations, to use mobile devices to provide information and services to small farmers in developing countries. The program targets farmers living on under $2 a day.
"There are over 2.3 billion people living on less than $2 a day, a large number of whom are rural smallholder farmers in developing countries," said Chris Locke, GSMA executive director. "Those farmers face many issues which inhibit their agricultural productivity and limit their incomes."
Mobile technology can link these small groups of farmers to information beyond their rural communities: services to impact their income and productivity, information on how to remove barriers and improve practices, and just an introduction into a broader agricultural network.
Improving agriculture productivity has a direct link to a population's food security and income levels, so the benefits afforded to the small farmer extend far beyond that one farm.
The new fund dovetails with the announcement of a pilot program, dubbed "mKrishi," which aims to support farmers by connecting them to more information.
With a more specific scope than mFarmer, mKrishi offers Indian framers information like weather, crop diseases and locations to sell produce. Farmers can use cell phones equipped with cameras to snap photos of diseased crops and send them to university experts who can analyze them and give advice.
In the U.S., President Barack Obama recognizes the value of Internet and social media for farmers, large and small, and called for greater wireless connectivity in rural areas this past January.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been working on 126 broadband projects across the country, totaling $1.2 billion in costs.
The increasingly lower cost of cell phones, the growing prevalence of the devices, and their size and portability are changing the way everyday people do everything things, but they are also demonstrating the power to transforms lives in some dramatic ways.
The GSMA represents mobile operators worldwide spanning 219 countries and uniting nearly 800 of the world's operators in addition to more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem of handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies and media and entertainment organizations.
The mFarmer Initiative Fund will support projects in India, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
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