Research by consultancy Accenture and telecommunications firm Vodafone claims the mobile phone app could prove a tool for significantly boosting sammholding farmers’ incomes, alleviating poverty and saving more than five mega tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2020. image expired

In a report, released on Monday, the groups measured the impact of telecommunications technologies on farming communities in countries including India and Egypt. The report suggests rolling out smartphone apps, which can track goods through the supply chain, providing farmers with up-to-date market price information, could boost smallholders’ incomes by an average of 11 per cent per farmer by 2020.

The study also suggests that, through using existing telecommunications technology, including smarter logistics apps which reduce fuel consumption and provide farmers with guidance on issues including pest control and climate change related challenges, CO2 emissions could be reduced by five mega tonnes in the same period.

The same systems could also reduce water use by six per cent; a recent EU study revealed agriculture is responsible for around 85 per cent of the world’s fresh water use and 49 per cent of cases of water scarcity, so optimisation of water withdrawal could have hugely beneficial effects.

Oxfam chief executive Barbara Stocking welcomed the report’s findings, "With more than 1.5 billion people worldwide dependent on smallholder agriculture – a group that includes half the world's undernourished people – mobile telephony could have significant potential to help the poorest farmers towards food and income security."

Mobile technology has already had a marked impact in boosting revenues and performance in small-scale sustainable farming communities in Africa, by giving farmers real-time information and market prices for their crops. The explosion of mobile phones on the African continent has led to the increasing development of improved products for farmers.