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While speaking to students of Gulu University, a World Bank representative remarked that the current model used by Operation Wealth Creation to reach out to small scale farmers countrywide was not effective and would not yield sustainable growth for the 96% of farmers in Uganda, who are largely subsistence farmers.
This revelation offers an opportunity to the managers of OWC to adopt new practices to improve the livelihoods of Ugandan farmers. Mobile phone technology has been with us for more than 20 years and in that time penetration has reached 80% of the population.
Using techniques such as USSD, a popular mobile phone technology, an application that runs on every mobile phone and is used by people to load airtime and transact with mobile money, farmers can have up to date information on market prices for their produce, fertilizer, pesticides and seeds, weather forecasts, disease outbreaks and prevention methods, knowledge sharing among groups and group savings and cooperatives among others on the tip of their handsets.
That would eliminate the need for a large number of extension workers and brokers who have always taken advantage of farmers and in hard to reach areas.
Current Use Cases
Applications such as wewole and mokash are already providing micro loans on phone networks at high interest rate. However the government could provide similar services at subsidized rates to encourage growth and usage.
It is true, the traditional methods are no longer applicable in today’s conditions and hence the need for innovative approaches.
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