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A tool to complement extension services and foster active
farmers’ participation and knowledge exchange
GeoFarmer App
GeoFarmer is an app designed to support experience
exchanges between farmers – be they positive or
negative – so that they can learn from each other
by asking questions and by sharing suggestions on
how their crop, animal and farm management can
be improved. Project implementers can also use it
to obtain continuous feedback and follow up with
farmers during project implementation. GeoFarmer
is a exible tool that can be used for data collection
(including spatial functionalities and location data to
geo-reference information), as a knowledge library, or
for ecient monitoring and evaluation of agricultural
technologies and practices implemented by farmers.
Summary
Authors
Anton Eitzinger, Mona Bartling, Christian Feil, Osana Bonilla-Findji,
Nadine Andrieu and Andy Jarvis.
Keywords
E-extension; Digital agriculture; Peer-to-peer sharing;
Collaborative farming; Data-collection; Agricultural development
projects.
KEY MESSAGES
Sharing experiences and information is
crucial for farmers to collaboratively improve
their agricultural practices and crop-specic
knowledge.
ICT-based extension (e-extension) combined
with data-driven agronomy is providing added
value to traditional extension approaches.
For research projects, GeoFarmer can facilitate
two-way interaction and better follow-up with
the farming community.
GeoFarmer helps to democratize extension
services and provide an alternative to the often
one-way top-down traditional extension services.
GeoFarmer was conceptualized as a tool that
provides near real-time, multi-way data ows
that support processes of co-innovation and
cost-eective monitoring and evaluation in
agricultural development projects.
GeoFarmer uses thematic or location-based
channels to provide a project-like structure and
has distinct roles for moderator, facilitator,
geo-manager and simple user, and it works
oine.
INFONOTE
2| INFONOTE GeoFarmer App
The rise of digital agriculture
could be the most
transformative and disruptive
change for smallholder
farmers since the Green
Revolution six decades ago.
Digital agriculture will not
only change how farmers
work, but will fundamentally
transform every part of the
agri-business value chain. The
biggest challenge, however, is
to make digital transformation
inclusive and sustainably
increase farmers’ living
income; this is especially true
for most of the world’s half-
billion smallholder farmers.
Improving their precarious
situation is often the target of
global development agencies,
but interventions sometimes
fall short of desired outcomes
due to their top-down nature
and lack of mechanisms for
scaling.
Introduction
Agricultural extension service functions
Sharing information is crucial as farmers prefer to make their decisions
based on discussions and their own experiences rather than following
top-down generalized recommendations. In countries with a strong
reliance on agriculture, traditional extension services play a major role in
disseminating knowledge, technologies and agricultural information to
improve livelihoods in rural areas. In addition, agricultural information
resource centers, agricultural shows, and community-managed plots are
all important sources of knowledge but hardly reach scale. To increase
productivity, however, a farmer needs context and site-specic agronomic
advice, and traditional extension approaches often cannot meet the
requirements in a spatially comprehensive and timely manner. The Feed
the Future Developing Local Extension Capacity (DLEC) project divides
extension functions into six steps:1
1. Diagnose problems that farmers face.
2. Make farmers aware of the benets of context-specic improved
practices.
3. Enable environments for farmers to try new practices.
4. Experiment with good practices.
5. Remind farmers what they have learned.
6. Get feedback from farmers regarding what they do not understand and
what additional information they need to adapt practices accordingly.
1 Source: www.agrilink s.org/activities/ feed-future-developing- local-extension- capacity-project
3
A tool to complement extension services and foster active farmers’ participation and knowledge exchange |
ICT-based extension (e-extension) to close the last-mile information gap
Digital extension or e-extension, consisting of the
use of short text or audio messages, visual delivery
via mass media (TV) or video, audio programs
(radio or talking books), or digital applications,
is complementary to traditional extension with
the benet of maximizing the use of information
and communications technologies (ICTs) and can
enhance dialogue and knowledge-sharing of farmers.
Furthermore, ICTs can bring to scale traditional
extension approaches and can level out the lack of
technical assistance and extension sta, and bring
information to marginalized areas. Complementary
to e-extension, open and distance learning can be
used to better reach extension workers and farmers,
deliver practical knowledge about farming and share
training opportunities for use of digital tools, therefore
mitigating negative eects of the digital divide.
E-extension services, as a complementary approach
to traditional extension services, can improve farm
productivity via decision-support services on mobile
apps or other digital platforms; using many sources
of information – weather data, land-use maps, soil
sensor data, satellite/drone imageries, etc. However,
e-extension needs to be implemented together with
data-driven agronomy approaches that analyze
insights from collected data and provides site-specic
recommendations for farmers, and support the
introduction of e-extension by capacity building on
ICT literacy. To be ecient and fulll their promised
potential, e-extension services depend upon multi-
information sources and analytics, otherwise, they are
just a digitized traditional extension channel. Around
the world, governmental agencies, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), private sector companies and
start-ups are developing and deploying ICT tools
that either aid extension agents or take over the
role of extension agents all together in areas where
traditional extension services are unavailable to
farmers. However, the quality of existing ICT-based
e-extension services can be greatly enhanced by
improving interoperability between single-solutions
and integrating near-real time information from data-
driven agronomy that provides more precise and
timely advice to farmers.
Farmer-to-farmer knowledge
sharing
Peer-to-peer information sharing among farmers,
together with data-driven smart farming, could lead to
the desired digital revolution in agriculture. ICT-based
tools can help to foster knowledge sharing among
farmers. To leverage digital tools, youth can play a major
role in helping older farmers in using such tools. Further,
in rural areas where extension services are insucient,
farmers often trust other community members more
than they trust external technical agents, therefore,
they can manage their crops and farms better if they
can communicate their experiences, both positive and
negative, with each other, and learn from practical
experiences of other farmers. Research has shown that
farmers are more likely to make decisions based on
input from peers, and ICTs, such as GeoFarmer, show
great potential to increase communication among
smallholders, and also with other experts from the sector
by reducing the transaction costs in information services,
and also reducing the information asymmetry.
4| INFONOTE GeoFarmer App
GeoFarmer is complementary to digital extension services, and the
community can use it. GeoFarmer was conceptualized as a tool that
enables a multi-way communication channel between farmers and
researchers and among groups of farmers; allowing community workers
and smallholders to easily collect and share information during project
interventions. For example, development agencies can tailor the tool and
create a new communication channel to gather eective feedback and to
respond to the emergent needs of their beneciaries. Farmers can use
the same communication channel to access information and best practice
knowledge about farming that was shared by other farmers or extension
workers. GeoFarmer provides near real-time, multi-way data ows that
support processes of co-innovation in agricultural development projects. It
can be used as a cost-eective ICT-based platform to monitor agricultural
production systems with interactive feedback between the users, within
pre-dened geographical domains, called channels.
GeoFarmer was developed using Progressive Web Application (PWA)
technology; therefore, it is platform-independent and can be used with
any standard Internet browser on either a personal computer or mobile
device such as a smartphone. It can also be added to the home screen of
smartphones, where it acts like a standard app. GeoFarmer works online as
well as oine, which benets the user in areas with limited Internet coverage.
GeoFarmer Tool
“An app like this
gives farmers a voice
and helps close the
communication
gap between people
working in the
development sector,
researchers working
on development
technologies, and
farmers. We are better
at understanding
farmers’ needs
and we’re more
responsive to emerging
opportunities and
unanticipated
challenges.”
Andy Jarvis,
Alliance Associate Director General -
Research, Innovation and Strategy
5
A tool to complement extension services and foster active farmers’ participation and knowledge exchange |
Figure 1. Screenshots showing the GeoFarmer app.
The potential of GeoFarmer is to be a generic tool that
uses a basic framework for interactive stakeholder
participation processes. The GeoFarmer app
(https://GeoFarmer.org) was developed based on
the GeoCitizen framework, and being part of its
developer-community. The basic framework for
citizen participation was further developed by the
International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
in collaboration with the University of Salzburg
Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics (Z_
GIS) for the special requirements of agricultural
development projects.
Channels
GeoFarmer uses channels to provide a project-like
structure. These channels have specic unique
characteristics, such as language, geographical location,
topics and target communities. For example, farmers
from villages in Northern Ghana implementing climate-
smart agricultural practices within a specic research
program could be part of a GeoFarmer channel
‘Implementing climate-smart agriculture practices in
Northern Ghana.’ All users (farmers, facilitators) from
this geographic area can subscribe to this channel,
which is managed by at least one moderator user.
New channels can be created upon request to the
GeoFarmer platform team. Additionally, a geo-data
manager can change standard maps and replace them
through own created map composites.
User roles
In a Geo-Farmer channel, a user can have four distinct
roles: a moderator, a facilitator, a geo-data manager, or a
user. Users with a moderator role can access advanced
functionalities for general channel management, such as
the management of user roles and surveys. Users with
a facilitator role support farmers in using GeoFarmer,
e.g. in doing surveys as interviews where the identity of
the surveyed farmer remains anonymous by using an
infeasible to invert hash value instead of the farmer’s
identity. Facilitators can be extension agents, lead
farmers, or community group leaders. Users with a
geo-data manager role can create customized maps
and manage the geospatial information in a channel, for
example, including available online map services or by
uploading a paper-scanned historical map; they could be
students from a local university. Farmers as users are
providing content-like comments or media les, asking
or answering questions and responding to surveys using
the GeoFarmer app. They can also share best practices
and step-by-step instructions about good agricultural
practices they have practiced on their farms.
6| INFONOTE GeoFarmer App
The user story
1 Miriam is a coee farmer. She lives in a remote
part of Colombia’s coee highlands. She loves to
talk to other coee farmers about new practices
that can overcome some of the challenges in coee
cultivation.
2 However, she doesn’t often get access to good
advisory services. The local extensionist visits her
very rarely, and she relies on the information she
gets from input sellers and buyers. Miriam learned
from her local community group about GeoFarmer,
an app where she can communicate with other
farmers and share experiences about coee
farming, both positive and negative.
3 After a training event at the local community
house, she installs GeoFarmer and joins a
community channel called ‘Coee farmers in
Colombia.’
4 Using GeoFarmer, she starts publishing questions
about a disease that her coee bushes have
recently had and which she has never seen before.
5 Very quickly she gets answers from other farmers
from her region. One farmer called Carlos, from
a dierent department, shares step-by-step
instructions on how to deal with the disease. The
information is very helpful for Miriam, and she
rates Carlos instructions with ve stars.
6 After using GeoFarmer for a while, Miriam gets
an invitation from a non-prot organization to
participate in a science project, and she provides
feedback about her coee farm and the other
challenges she and her family are facing.
Functions
Participate - User groups are organized in communication
channels. Channels are oered to the user based on
spatial proximity and through content allocation. After
subscribing to a channel, the user is part of the virtual
community and can start participating in activities.
Diagnose - Users can pose questions to the channel
community, for example, asking for an answer to a
problem the user is facing. Other channel subscribers will
give possible answers to the problem and discuss among
themselves to nd the best solution for the problem.
Share/Learn - How to implement a new practice, or
how to face a specic issue, can be shared by a user as a
step-by-step instruction or a best practice, so that other
users can learn from these instructions.
Collect/Contribute - Users can design questionnaires
for Monitoring and Evaluation of Research projects.
Modules
GeoFarmer is modular in structure, with specic
modules available to channels.
Customizable maps
GeoFarmer provides extended functionalities for
collecting spatial data and creating customizable maps.
Users – geo-manager role – can create geo-feature-
enriched base maps for channels by uploading open
geodata, such as kml, gpx, (geo)json, shapeles, etc.;
or by adding web-map services. Users – user role – can
capture geo-spatial information such as a GPS location,
tracking of movements or drawing of geo-features. In
a channel, the collected geo-features can be managed
and used in other modules as feature collections.
Geo-enabled surveys
Geo-enabled surveys extend standard survey
functionalities with geographical features, including
map features as part of a question response, such
as the selection or creation of point features on a
map. Survey results can be visualized and in this way
geospatially referenced. Surveys can be designed –
moderator role – as responsive survey trees, including
condition-dependent branches (if-then algebra, etc.).
Questionnaires can also be carried out as facilitator-led
surveys, using interviewer’s team – facilitator role – for
interviewing farmers that are not able to complete a
digital survey on their own due to technical or personal
restrictions. Subscribed farmers can still ll the surveys
– user role – by themselves.
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A tool to complement extension services and foster active farmers’ participation and knowledge exchange |
SHARE PARTICIPATE
ASK
1
3
5
2
6
4
8| INFONOTE GeoFarmer App
Use cases and pilots
GeoFarmer was tested and deployed alongside three
development projects, including the Climate-Smart
Villages Network established as part of the CGIAR
Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture
and Food Security (CCAFS).
Tanzania
In 2015, Farmers in Lushoto, in the Usambara
Mountains in North-Eastern Tanzania, were the
rst to use GeoFarmer as part of a citizen scientist
project to test and manage climate-smart agricultural
practices. One practice included the adoption of
manure composting amongst the farming community
in Lushoto, to increase productivity, reduce costs and
diminish reliance on chemical fertilizers. GeoFarmer
was used to collect feedback from farmers about
their awareness, knowledge and use of the practice,
Collaboration (peer-to-peer knowledge sharing)
The Collaboration module allows users to easily
provide specic input and best practice cases to their
communities and ask others for feedback in certain
elds of interest, building a common knowledge base.
Farmers – user role – can ask a question to the channel
community, and other users can provide answers.
Users can share step-by-step instructions on how to
implement agricultural practices, and other channel
subscribers can rate and comment on the best practice.
Sketch maps
On Sketch maps, users – user role – can share their
input on a specic issue or communicate their ideas in
a creative way by drawing freehand on a digital map.
Results can be easily integrated into further discussions
or processes. Users – geo-manager role – can create
individual channel maps by uploading geographic point,
line or polygon features.
Farm calculator (beta)
The Farm calculator module is a tool allowing the
prospective quantitative assessment of the trade-
os and synergies between various objectives of
farming activities. After users’ input of requested
data – facilitator or user role – compound variables are
calculated following dened metrics that are dened by
another user – moderator role – and provide insights on
farm performance for dened criteria.
Push notications (beta)
Push notications assist process managers –
moderator role – in keeping their communities up to
date on the latest developments of their projects and
initiatives, as platform (push) notications or Short-
Message-Service (SMS).
and to georeference community demonstration plots
and to carr y out surveys.
Uganda
Between 2017 and 2019, in the project Climate-Smart
Coee and Cocoa (CSCC), an empirical usability
study was carried out with farmers groups on
Mount Elgon in Uganda. As interactive maps provide
new information or enrich existing information by
geospatially referencing it, the study aimed to design
new interactive maps for farmers. Researchers
evaluated mapping interfaces with dierent
functionalities and styles against farmers’ ease of use.
Other countries in Latin America, sub-Saharan
Africa, South Asia and South-East Asia
Since 2017, GeoFarmer has been used for CCAFS’
integrated monitoring system in Climate-Smart
Villages in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Ghana, Uganda, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Bangladesh,
Senegal and Vietnam, to evaluate adoption and
perceived benets of climate-smart agriculture (CSA)
options and to understand their barriers to adoption.
Using the geo-enabled survey module with the
survey-tree func tion, a set of 40 robust and standard
indicators (15 Core and 25 descriptive) covering the
Productivity/Food Security, Adaptation and Mitigation
CSA pillar has been developed and applied at
household and farm level.
9
A tool to complement extension services and foster active farmers’ participation and knowledge exchange |
Beyond the ICT app, GeoFarmer aims to integrate the
technology with other mobile apps to address missing
interoperabilit y. The current reality of data collection
at farm level is that most smallholder farmers do not
keep farm records, and dierent actors from research,
academia, non-prot, governmental institutions
and the private sector, all collect farm data for their
own use. In many cases, they even collect the same
data, from the same area, and sometimes even from
GeoFarmer is a new app that helps to democratize
agro-advisory and extension services and provide
an alternative to the often one-way, top-down
traditional extension services. However, e-extension,
as complementary to traditional extension services, is
still out of the reach of many farmers because of a lack
of connectivity in rural areas, missing capacity building
and poor usability of ICT applications. GeoFarmer is
complementary to e-extension services and to the
community.
GeoFarmer enables a multi-way communication
channel between farmers and researchers and among
groups of farmers, allowing community workers and
smallholders to easily collect and share information
during project interventions. The functions of
GeoFarmer allow for active participation of farmers,
auto-diagnose by asking questions that are answered
by peers, sharing of best practices to help others,
and contribute through feedback to science and
development projects. GeoFarmer was tested and
deployed in three use cases alongside development
projects in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, South
Asia and South-East Asia.
For the next development phase, GeoFarmer will
be integrated with other mobile apps to solve the
problem of missing interoperability of data collected
by dierent actors from research, academia, non-
prot, governmental institutions and the private sector.
Integrating the dierent e-extension service systems
will help to establish innovative monitoring systems
and produce smart metrics for the supply side, and
innovate around the development of unique services
for the farmer.
Conclusions and outlook
Why another app?
Atzmanstorfer K; Resl R; Eitzinger A; Izurieta X. 2014. The GeoCitizen-
Approach: Community-Based Spatial Planning – an Ecuadorian Case
Study. Cartography and Geographic Information Science 00 (00):1–12.
https://doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2014.890546
Atzmanstorfer K; Eitzinger A; Marin BE; Parra Arteaga A; González Quintero B;
Resl R. 2016. HCI-Evaluation of the GeoCitizen-Reporting App for Citizen
Particip ation in Spatial Planning and Community Management among M embers
of Marginalized Communities in Cali, Colombia. GI Forum 4(1):117–132.
https://doi.org/10.1553/giscience2016_01_s117
Bartling M; Sotelo S; Eitzinger A; Atzmanstorfer K. 2016. Press the Button:
Online/Offline Mobile Applications in an Agricultural Context. GI Forum
4(1):106-116. https://doi.org/10.1553/giscience2016_01_s106
Further reading
Bartling M; Bernd R; Eitzinger A; Zurita-Arthos L. 2019. A Multi-National Human-
Computer Interaction Evaluation of the Public Participatory GIS GeoCitizen.
GI_Forum, 7(1):19-39. https://doi.org/10.1553/giscience2019_01_s19
Eitzinger A ; Sayula G; Benjamin T; Rodríguez B; Winowiec ki L; Läderach P; Koech N;
Twyman J. 2015. Using Science Knowledge and Expert Feedback to Accelerate
Local Adoption: Climate Smart Technologies and Prac tices Meet ICT Tools. Cali,
Colombia. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.2733.3289
Eitzinger A ; Cock J; Atzmanstor fer K; Binder CR; L äderach P; Bonilla-Fin dji O; Bartling
M; Mwongera C; Zurit a L; Jarvis A . 2019. GeoFarmer: A Monitoring an d Feedback
System for A gricultural Develop ment Projects. Computers and Electronic s in Agriculture
158 (June 2018):109–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2019.01.049
the same farmers. From an eciency standpoint,
bringing diverse data sources together would help
service providers to innovate around new information
services, and farmers to better understand and cope
with on-farm risks. However, there are still barriers
to data interoperability among e-extension solutions,
such as missing coordination and collaboration
between multiple institutions, missing trust, and lack
of standards.
Agrilinks. 2019. Feed the Future Developing Local Extension Capacity Project. Agrilinks,
27 Mar 2019, www.agrilinks.org/activities/feed-future-developing-local-extension-
capacity-project
Babu SC; Ramesh N; Shaw C. 2015. The current status and role of private extension: A
literature review and a co nceptual framework. In: Zhou Y; B abu SC (Eds.). Knowledge
Driven Development: Private Extension and Global Lessons. Shirley Decker-Lucke,
London, United Kingdom, pp. 7–55.
https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-802231-3.00002-4
Carbonell IM. 2016. The ethics of big data in big agriculture. Internet Policy Rev. 5 , 1–13.
ht tps://d oi.org /10.1476 3/ 2016.1.405
Eastwood C; Ayre M; Nettle R; De la Rue B. 2019. Making Sense in the
Cloud: Farm Advisory Services in a Smart Farming Future. NJAS -
Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, no. December 2018: 100298.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2019.04.004
Jain PK; Hansra BS; B abu SC. 2019. Open and distance learning for capac ity development
of extension profe ssionals, Agricult ural Extension Reforms in S outh Asia. Elsevier In c.
https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-818752-4.00015-1
Jiménez D; Dorado H; Cock J; P rager SD; Delerce S; Grillon A; A ndrade Bejarano M; Benavide s
H; Jarvis A ; Bejarano MA; Benav ides H; Jarvis A . 2016. From Observatio n to Information:
Data-Driven Understanding of on Farm Yield Variation. PLoS One 11, e0150015.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150015
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CONTACT:
Anton Eitzinger
CIAT Climate Change Scientist
a.eitzinger@cgiar.org
Eitzinger A; Bartling M; Feil C; Bonilla-Findji O; Andrieu N; Jarvis A. 2020. GeoFarmer app: A tool to complement extension services and foster
active farmers’ participation and knowledge exchange. Infonote. International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); University of Salzburg
Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics (Z_GIS). Cali, Colombia. 10 p.
Correct citation
Watch video introducing GeoFarmer app https://bit.ly/2SZ9ezk
