2020 Winner
‘On time’ predictive alerts for locust action
Kenya
Tomorrow will develop a 360-degree locust monitoring tool for use by public and private organizations that are critical to the locust response, as well as impacted local stakeholders. Enabled through a partnership with ICARDA and leveraging Tomorrow.io’s weather intelligence engine, the tool will be developed with end-users and farmers to monitor key aspects, share early warnings, and increase countries’ capacity to prepare and respond early and effectively. The project aims to deliver and pilot the first prototype with farmers in Kenya in 2021.
This Inspire Challenge proposal was selected as a 2020 pilot project winner, receiving a total of US$ 100,000 to put their ideas into practice. Learn more about the Inspire Challenge Grant here.
Step by step
2021
JAN 2021
Identifying stakeholders
The team mapped the stakeholders impacted by the recent locust plague, as well as those involved in the response, in order to understand the needs of the community and weather thresholds.
FEB 2021
Prototype development
The team developed a prototype of the 360-degree locust monitoring tool that will be critical for public and private organizations in order to respond to local stakeholders impacted by locust.
FEB - APRIL 2021
Field research
The team carried out field research and conducted interviews to understand the locust decision-making process of farmers and response networks, as well as opportunities for on-farm action based on predictive locust alerts.
FEB - DEC 2021
Creation of an insights library for locust monitoring at farm level
The team is gathering insights to add a library to the monitoring tool for farmers and decision-makers, as well as an SMS/Whatsapp integration (inbound, external), a hatching index, and a locust trajectory model.
2020
OCT 2020
Project awarded US$100K Inspire Challenge grant
The project was one of seven winners of the Inspire Challenge 2020 and was awarded US$100K at the fourth annual convention of the CGIAR Platform Big Data in Agriculture, 19-23 October 2020.
Gender & Youth Inclusion
- An equal number of men and women farmers will be interviewed in the data collection phase.
- With help from the project’s local partner, a gender focus group will be held in order to capture gender-specific commentary and feedback.
- The team will leverage ICARDA’s experience ensuring that women farmers are reached by technological initiatives. A gender in agriculture specialist will advise the team during the pilot phase to ensure that women farmers’ feedback is heard and integrated into the product.
- The team intends for women farmers to make up 60 per cent of those reached by the project.
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