Digitalisation
Why Does Digitalisation Matter?
When our partners and we began working with farmers in the Nsokote district, one number stood out: only 16% of farmers had access to a knowledge sharing platform that actually functioned. Most farming decisions, such as when to prune, how much fertilizer to apply, whether a pest outbreak was spreading were made without data, without records, and without support. Digitalisation is designed to change that as a tool that helps farmers see their farms more clearly, make better decisions, and connect to a wider world of knowledge and markets.
1. Better Records
Most cocoa farmers in the Nsokote district currently have no system for tracking what happens on their farms from season to season. Inputs applied, yields harvested, pests observed, interventions made: all of this knowledge lives in memory, and it disappears with time.
The Farm of the Future introduces simple, practical tools for capturing and storing this information. Through the Kijani regreening app, farmers log GPS based field observations that are validated by satellite. Google Forms and mWater have already been used by trained youth to record soil conditions and track farm data. So that when a farmer can look back at two seasons of records, they make better decisions about the next one.
2. Field Data
The Carboneers AI monitoring system uses low cost smartphones and mini drones to count cocoa pods, map trees, and detect early pest and disease outbreaks. Harvest losses across the region currently run between 25% and 40% and much of that is driven by problems that go undetected until it is too late.
Early detection changes that equation. IoT sensors on biochar kilns track production conditions in real time. Soil moisture data collected by bootcamp trainees has already been used to develop practical solutions to local challenges. The farm is becoming a source of data and not just a place of production.
3. Farmer Decisions
FarmTree allows farmers and field officers to design agroforestry systems and simulate their profitability before a single tree is planted. It makes the financial consequences of different choices visible before money is spent, reducing the risk of transition.
The Kijani app provides GPS based personalised advice on shade management, soil health, intercropping, and water management, turning general guidance into farm specific recommendations. For a farmer like Afua, whose decisions affect not just her income but the livelihoods of the labour groups and community members who depend on her farm, having better information is the difference between luck and a plan.
4. Monitoring
Digital monitoring connects the farm to a larger system of accountability and opportunity. Carboneers monitors all project activities through a mobile app and third party audits, feeding into the carbon credit verification process that will eventually generate additional income for farmers. IoT monitoring on biochar kilns ensures production quality is tracked and documented. Satellite validation through the Kijani app confirms what is happening on the ground matches what is being reported. Ten field officers will use digital monitoring tools across the expanding network of farms, ensuring that what is learned on Afua’s model farm travels accurately to the 200 farms the project aims to reach by 2028.
5. Youth Roles
Digitalisation is one of the primary tools for keeping young people in farming. Surveys across the three communities found that 44% of youth are at high risk of leaving agriculture since they are becoming drawn away by the perception that farming offers no future, no skills, no status. This is also why this is called The Farm of the Future: We aim to show the future generations that their faming futures can begin here :)
The Farm of the Future positions digital tools as a direct response to this. Maxim Nyansa led a one month digitalisation bootcamp for young people from Meduma and surrounding communities. By graduation, just a month ago, trainees were using Canva, mWater, and Google Forms to build real solutions to real problems in Ghana’s cocoa sector, including a project on soil moisture monitoring and its impact on cocoa production. Participants who had never opened Canva before were designing full presentation slides within a week. A young person who can operate a drone, monitor soil data, or manage a digital farm record system is not just a farm labourer but rather, a skilled technician with a career.
6. Scale Up Logic
The digital infrastructure being built in Meduma is designed to travel.
Five local teachers are being trained as certified digital facilitators through a train the trainer (ToT) model. As they train others, the knowledge multiplies without depending on external expertise each time. Ten field officers will carry digital monitoring tools across the growing network of farms. A Learning Center equipped with laptops, tablets, and offline content is being established to sustain training beyond the bootcamp.
As the project scales to 200 farmers by 2028, the data collected on yields, soil health, pest pressure, biochar production, will feed carbon markets, support supply chain transparency, and make the case for regenerative farming to investors and buyers far beyond Meduma.
So basically, the farm generates data, the data generates trust, the trust generates investment.
