Author: William

By Priscilla Basemera 

At 10 am, on the bright Wednesday morning of 29th July, Agribusiness Development Centre (ADC) at their offices on Plot 1 Mackinnon Road, launched SOMA, the first e-learning platform of its kind in Uganda with a press conference. 

There are a few e-learning options available for agriculture professionals predominantly in the United States and in some parts of Asia but not in Uganda. Internet searches for e-learning platforms provide search results to student learning portals but not farmer knowledge.

SOMA, a self-paced online portal has been developed and tailored to the needs of individual farmers and farmer-based organizations. The General Manager of ADC, Emmanuel Obuko, during the launch remarked that with the low literacy levels in Uganda, adapting technology in agriculture has been difficult.

DRIVING FARMER LITERACY

Agricultural development in a changing world is not only dependent on constantly improving existing practices but also on the adoption of innovations like SOMA.

SOMA takes into consideration the different possibilities e-learning has to offer. It incorporates allowing learners an opportunity to access the available courses within their respective geographical locations at a time convenient for them at no cost. With agriculture being Uganda’s most important export sector, several factors including limited availability of finance, lack of access to timely and quality market information as well as poor agricultural practices to mention but a few are an obstacle. ADC, with a desire of training farmers in becoming self-sufficient developed SOMA to provide knowledge in areas such as Good Governance, Financial Literacy and Marketing.

WHY FARMERS?

ADC was established in 2017 by Rabo Foundation, a Netherlands based organization and Dfcu Bank in Uganda. With agriculture being the backbone of Uganda and employing 70% of Ugandans, the ADC through training aims to support farmer-based organizations in becoming self-sufficient and bankable. In a means to create professional development opportunities for agriculture practitioners, ADC creates innovative ideas that are effective and efficient for farmers in Uganda to earn a living enough to sustain their families as well.

The first steps of e-learning in agriculture have been taken in countries like Asia by the Asia – Pacific Regional Technology Centre (APRTC) in Thailand. Fully exploiting electronic media and maximizing its usefulness while creating a well-designed electronic training system for learners.

The online programs available on SOMA are designed to engage the learners and avail learning resources in the form of case studies for their benefit. Lessons are available in English, Luganda, Luo, and Runyakitara. The choice is simply yours.

By Priscilla Basemera

With the existence of the global pandemic COVID-19 and its impact on business activities, Agribusiness Development Centre (ADC) utilized the internet as a link to farmers, farmer-based organizations (FBOs) and the general public who have been spending most of their time at home and on their smartphones.

Online channels have been an ideal way of raising awareness of activities that businesses are indulging in during the ongoing pandemic. ADC through a digital campaign labeled “Register to Win” launched SOMA, an e-learning platform specific to agribusiness on its social media channels Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. SOMA can be accessed on www.soma.adc.ug.

The main aim of this campaign was to encourage people to sign-up for lessons on the SOMA platform. The 1st 10 people to register each week were hosted at the ADC offices in Kampala on Plot 1 Mackinnon Road for an interaction with the ADC Team and in appreciation of their efforts parted with a gift hamper. This campaign ran for 4 weeks bringing in a total of 40 winners.

From the 40 winners, only 14 were within Kampala during the campaign and shared their experience with SOMA upon their visit to the ADC offices. These 14 winners comprised of students, farmers, teachers and businessmen to mention but a few.

At this gathering, the ADC Team was represented by the Ag. General Manager, Emmanuel Obuko; Head of Communication and Marketing, Katia Mugenzi and Software Engineer, William Ssenyondo who developed the SOMA platform.

To catch a glimpse of what some of the winners had to say about SOMA, visit https://youtu.be/xLfY7k_1zH8   

#1. Front-End Process

SOMA is a web based application that be accessed from either computers, laptops and smart mobile devices over the internet and access is by typing the application address into your browser www.soma.adc.ug

To access the application lessons, a user must be registered with an account. Upon registration, a user can access and enroll for any selected course of choice and start learning. The learning process involves steps that a user undertakes and at the end a user receives a certificate.

#2. Backend Process

The application runs on a 3-tier architecture where we have clients (browsers, server (files storage and page rendering) and a data store. This infrastructure is cloud based. 

APPLICATION FEATURES

The application has the following features:

1. Registration/Sign up

A user accesses SOMA and registers for an account by clicking “START COURSE” button then click on Register tab to show the “Register for an account”. Upon successful registration, user receives both an email & SMS text with his/her account details.

2. Module/Course Enrollment

Once logged in, a user can enroll for any module/course of choice by clicking “START COURSE” as the selected course is added to his/her account.

3. Course Overview

User has access to course sessions and details and can view a summary of each session under the course.

4. Course Lesson

Users can access lesson content i.e. video, text, graphic as they learn and get to make them complete if they are done understanding the lesson.

5. Forums

Interactive messaging for users within a course to enable discussions. There is also a chat box where you can ask a question to the ADC business advisors.

SOMA supports a variety of content mainly in these categories: – video, graphics, audio, and text to render a unique learning experience to users.

Product Description

The ADC e-learning is a web based (internet based/ powered) self-learning platform that allows for users (unique compared with other eLearning platforms in simplicity), mainly individual farmers, farmer-based organization management and farmer members who belong to FBO to access learning resources (governance and leadership, financial literacy and management and marketing) virtually. The e-learning is designed on a self-based learning methodology where members can access the system, register for accounts, and choose any courses they may wish to learn and gain skills on.

Overall Goal

The main goal of the platform is to give a learning opportunity to FBOs and members the ADC cannot reach in the physical to self-learn by accessing the different resources available on the platform remotely.

Objectives

► Improve on the efficiency and effectiveness of how training services are delivered to the ADC set target (FBOs; producer cooperatives, marketing cooperatives, SACCOs engaged in SMEs)

►  Foster self-paced learning at own convenience for both FBOs and individual farmers in ADC hard to reach areas at a minimal cost.

► Increase the ADC training capacity: currently trained 7,563, we want to reach over 100,000+ farmers remotely.

► Collect relevant data (feedback and FAQs) from the learners to be able to improve learner materials on the platform.

By Anja De Feijter 

How is the new mobile App for Dairy farmers relevant to farm technologies and management? 

Farm management draws on agricultural economics for information on prices, markets, agricultural policy, and economic institutions such as leasing and credit. This means the dairy sector needs to include information support systems to Dairy management information system supports four of five propositions: reduced product shortcoming, optimal product mix, quality, and efficiencies for the farmers. 

Agribusiness development Centre(ADC) together with our partners developed a solution for the dairy farmers and rolled to Bugerere dairy cooperative with over 300 members. Edward Mukimbiri, a farmer in Bugerere Dairy cooperative, delivers 20 liters per day for two times 6:00am and to his cooperative where he is a manager, when he delivers his milk.

eMata is an application tailored for dairy farmers to allow them to use the power of loans to invest in the productivity of their produce. It allows transparent recording and ensures daily milk deliveries are registered whereby the farmer automatically gets instant information about the quantity and price of the milk delivery. 

eMata allows dairy cooperatives to effectively manage their administration, including their membership, farmer profiles, payment methods, deliveries and deductions. It makes calculation of farmer payments simple and fast, and supports multiple modes of payment such as cash, mobile money and bank.

When financially sustainable technologies and good management practices are used in unison, new levels of farm productivity become obtainable. The long-term goal of the app is to use the data to provide financial services to cooperatives and farmers, such as credits in terms of goods and services, loans and payments. 

eMata is free to use but distributed through field partners and rolled out on cooperative basis. If you want to use eMata for your cooperative, please contact Laboremus Uganda Ltd. “Through smart use of both technology and field training, we believe that this partnership will build a foundation on which cooperatives and farmers can grow stronger, more efficient and prosperous. 

The standards of living of rural farmers.

According to statistics from Uganda Dairy Development Authority, out of Uganda’s annual milk production of 2.5 billion litres, 80 per cent is sold while 20 per cent is consumed by the producing households. Middlemen take the lion’s share of proceeds from milk and this is so because farmers face challenges such as difficulty in accessing the market, production on a small scale by individual farmers and failure to access financial services to improve on production, among others.