A cluster of Tunisian agri-tech companies, led by Stecia International, is organizing the Tunisian agri-tech week in Abidjan from November 21 to 25. Among these companies, iFarming offers IT solutions accessible to smallholder farmers. We spoke with Ms. Rabeb Fersi, the co-founder of the company.
For Ms. Fersi, smallholder farmers in these regions have limited access to digital solutions for farming for several reasons. She said: "The cost of solutions already available on the market is too high for smallholder farmers, most of them are unranked. In addition, existing solutions require a high level of technical know-how from users".
iFarming's flagship product is a mobile application, called "Crop's Talk", which addresses this issue. "With a simple interface and no need for specific hardware other than a smartphone, our app provides farmers with customized crop advisory according to their needs". Using a photo recognition tool, the application detects the crop and offers a daily program for irrigation, fertilization and disease and pest control based on scientific algorithms to simulate real time crop's water and nutrients requirements according to their growth stage. Farmers pay only for the program they used, via mobile payment.
The company launches "adaptation campaigns" to make its application operational in a specified country. Ms Fersi explains: "These campaigns consist of collecting data on the local soil, climate and plant, which are then continuously updated by local service providers, especially to take into account new diseases and climate change." Today, the application is operational in Senegal, where an adaption campaign took place.
The next campaign, followed by a test phase, will take place in Tunisia in 2023. The company is targeting other countries in both regions (North and West Africa) such as Morocco, Algeria, Ivory Coast and Togo. The solution is designed primarily for fruit and vegetable producers.
The team behind Crop's Talk, composed of Tunisian agronomists researchers with more than 20 years of experience, is accompanied in this venture by Expertise France of the French Development Agency and the European Union.
For more information:
Ms. Rabeb Fersi
iFarming
Tel: 00216 52 207 808
Email: contact@cropstalk.com
www.cropstalk.com