Did you know that rural farmers around the world face various challenges on a yearly basis? The main challenge, though, is the same regardless of where in the world: to access information on how to produce, and sell, more of their produce.

With that in mind, Alloysius Attah co-founded Farmerline in 2013. “I spent 15 years of my life… helping on the farm which… exposed me to many challenges our farmers face across Africa,” the Ghanaian said.

Farmerline was created with the intent to improve the lives of African farmers through an increase in productivity and thus yield which in turn generates higher profits for the farmers. The company is a mobile service which provides farmers around Africa with real-time agricultural information such as weather forecasts, the latest farming tips, and produce prices; it even connects famers to local markets. Besides that, users can also ask farming related questions via a support line, such as how to best store produce, how to reduce pests etc.

“Realising that around two-thirds of people in rural Ghana now have a mobile phone, we saw an opportunity to bridge the information gap using mobile technology. Rather than relying purely on information transmission by SMS (which obviously has limited value for those that cannot read) Farmerline’s service is delivered as voice recordings in a range of local languages,” Attah said.

Since its inception, more than 200,000 farmers have used Farmerline; the company has also mapped over 700,000 hectares of land for farming across 11 countries.