Mobile technology for smart agriculture: Deployment case for cocoa production

In order to maximise the quality and quantity of agricultural production, smart farming has become imperative where mobile technologies can be employed to access: real-time information on crop yields and soil-mapping, fertiliser application, weather data and intelligent assessment. However, in some economies, there is huge gap between agriculture production and the required supporting mobile technology. Thus, the goal of this research is to narrow this gap by proposing a smartphone application that facilitates intelligent real-time access to agronomic information. Specific to cocoa production in Ghana, our proposed research can aid farmers to use their smartphones to: 1) access agronomic information on cocoa management; 2) perform self-assessment of cocoa pod infestation; 3) perform stock analysis of their produce; 4) offers a crowd-sourcing forum for the farmers to discuss cocoa-related issues. The work received 96.88% strong satisfaction rating from the evaluated feedback collected from 32 cocoa producers who also said they will recommend it for community usage. Also, 87.50% of the test users find the developed app to be helpful and useful. Furthermore, 100% of the users expressed interest in using the app to better manage cocoa production.