A 2019 Inspire Challenge project is improving regional weather forecasts in Kenya by crowdsourcing weather information and incentivizing farmers uptake of localised agro-advisories.

The changing climate in East Africa combined with a lack of reliable agricultural information reaching farmers, means that farmers may plant or harvest crops at inappropriate times. Just a ten-day planting delay can reduce yields by 50%. In an effort to improve big-data driven weather forecasts and increase uptake of agro-advisory services, the project has gamified weather forecasting–offering incentives for farmers to submit their predictions for the start of the rains and to adopt a free agro-weather advisory service.

Watch project leader Sophe Rottmann (The Mediae Company) chat about the innovative #BigDataInAg research in this video, and read more about the project timeline and achievements here.