Farmers mobile application for ordering inputs and marketing produce
Date
2019
Authors
Limo, Augustine Biwott
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Strathmore University
Abstract
Farming operations experience long agricultural supply chain every day. These long chains include, but not limited to very long processes of getting desired farm inputs and reaching the actual market for produce leading to excessive price abuse. In a small-scale farming setup, a farmer cannot access direct input and even sell their produce to the right market other than to depend on middle-men, brokers, who do not give them fair dues and thus the overall value of the farming becomes un-profitable. The current small-holder farming setup do not explicitly consider commercial farming and majorly concentrate on subsistence farming yet there is enough potential to go commercial. This dissertation investigated the agricultural supply chain process. It was done by considering the challenges faced by farmers, especially small holder during start of farming, nurturing and selling produce. Further the current solutions used to get inputs and sale of produce were considered and a suitable solution designed, developed, tested and validated to ensure that it solved these challenges. Data was collected from existing records of farmers input per season, produce gathered and sold. The data collected was used as input to an Android mobile application for farmers to order inputs and sell produce. Scrum Agile Development methodology was adopted as the software methodology for developing the solution. A proof of concept mobile application was adopted to make farm input orders and sell produce. Testing was conducted by the several farmers who were registered in the platform and a setup place in Eldoret town.
Description
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Mobile Telecommunications and Innovation (MSc. MTI) at Strathmore University
Keywords
Farmer Produce Sell, Farmer Input Supply