How WeFarm Connects Small Farmers Without the Internet
There are about 500 million small-scale farmers on Earth, and most of them live on less than $1 a day. That's half a billion people laboring below the global poverty line, surviving and sometimes struggling to improve their harvests. They're often separated from larger population centers, or lack the means to educate themselves on specialized farming methods, or run up against natural and man-made obstacles that leave the futures of their farms in jeopardy. In these situations, knowledge is as valuable a tool as a shovel, a seed or a plow. But whereas the internet is readily available to Western nations on the grid, farmers in Africa and parts of South America operate on a digital deficit.
That's why WeFarm calls itself, "The internet for people without the internet."
Founded in 2014, WeFarm is a free, peer-to-peer service designed for farmers living around the world. It enables farmers to share information with each other via SMS (Short Message Service), or text messaging. WeFarm translates and connects queries from continent to continent, and has thus far provided more than 100,000 answers to its 43,000 registered farmers.
Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security