Researchers are already working on deploying a mobile app to address the effect of armyworm that has infested millions of hectares of crops- especially maize (a staple food) in Africa over the past two years.
According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) the pest which is native to the Americas and now present in all but 10 African countries threatens the food supply and income of more than 300 million people.
The rapid pace of the spread led the UN agency to launch a smartphone app to map it.
According to All Africa News, FAO’s Lewis Hove, in South Africa, said, “We don’t know how (this pest) is going to move from one part of the country to another, or from one country to another.
” Hove explained that the app would help governments, researchers and donors better understand the threat.
The app, which runs on Android smartphones, then calculates the infestation level.
Once that data, including the field’s location, is uploaded to the FAO’s servers, it goes to a webbased platform where researchers and others can view it, said Keith Cressman, who led the app development team.
Studies show smartphone usage in Africa is low, but Cressman, an FAO senior agricultural officer, said the FAO’s emergency support to combat the pest includes money to help countries get low-cost smartphones to farmers.
“The smartphone is quite a good solution as long as there are lowcost options available – the app is simple and intuitive to use, and the transmission costs are not high and not covered by the farmer,” he said.
“We want to make it very simple, very practical.
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