Social Business Magazine 1 | Page 8

Farmerline

Empower small-scale farmers with innovative mobile technology &

information services

What is Farmerline?

Farmerline is a Ghanaian social business working to transform the lives of millions of farmers. The company deploys mobile and web technologies that brings farming advice, weather forecasts, market information and financial tips to farmers who are traditionally out-of reach due to barriers in connectivity, literacy, and language.

With support from development partners, we have been able to provide mobile services that improve the livelihoods of over 5,000 rural farmers through communicating timely and relevant agricultural information (weather alerts, best farming practices, financial tips and market prices) through voice and SMS messages directly to their mobile phones.

We have also been able to support food companies (Hershey, Ecom Trading and Armajaro), governments, mobile network operators and agricultural businesses with services such as farm management, communication, data collection and traceability tools to better manage their partnerships with small-scale farmers and their entire supply chain.

In the past three years, we have impacted over 200,000 farmers across five (5) countries in Africa.

Mission and Vision.

Our overall objective is to empower two million small-scale farmers across Africa by 2024 to become financially prosperous and more commercial in their farming ventures. Through this, we want to help smallholder farmers increase their productivity and yield so that they can generate more profit and develop viable and sustainable businesses. Our vision is to reach at least two million farmers all over the world.

How Farmerline Got Started

Growing up in rural Ghana on two acres of land farmed by his aunt, Alloysius Attah (CEO) experienced first-hand the challenges faced by smallholder farmers, who account for 80% of Ghana’s domestic food production. The only way Alloysius’aunt could get advice on improving her farming practices was on the radio.

“By improving farmer's knowledge of new techniques and technologies in addition to providing them with resources necessary for implementation, can dramatically increase their level of productivity.

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A Farmerline staff with a local farmer.

Local farmers with their new phones