Finalist category: Tech4Good for Africa Award
Finalist, Tech4Good for Africa Award, 2021
The Haller Foundation works with ultra-poor smallholder farmers (those surviving on less than $1.25 a day) living off barren land in the coastal regions.
of Mombasa, Kenya. Communities are taken through Haller’s holistic 4-year model for livelihood improvement, also known as the Haller Journey. They collaborate, and work in partnership with communities to establish access to water and sanitation, whilst teaching farmers to regenerate their land and farm sustainably. They improve health, educate and equip people with the know-how to start and run businesses which kick-start local economies and protect the environment.
Haller ensures that communities build stable livelihoods and resilience in the face of climatic uncertainty. Connectivity and affordability of technology in Kenya have been increasing due to the wide scale use of Mpesa. This made it a fertile landscape for Haller to scale their methods and reach farmers further afield by harnessing the power of mobile technology.
The Haller Farmers App was developed in 2020, enabling The Haller Foundation to reach thousands more smallholders that couldn’t be directly supported by their extension workers. Haller has continued to evolve and innovate as technology develops. Originally a web-based app, Haller Farmers was redeveloped to an offline, downloadable smartphone application, making it more relevant and accessible to smallholder farmers across East Africa. It equips small-scale farmers with comprehensive agricultural techniques at their fingertips, promoting affordable and environmentally friendly methods to grow food sustainably for both nature and economy.
The app provides the tools to reclaim land deemed ‘unfarmable’, boosting productivity whilst reducing the impact on the environment. It’s the innovative product of 50 years of research and consultation with the very farmers it’s intended to help. All 100+ techniques on Haller Farmers are climate-smart and regenerative, designed to promote the protection and improvement of existing ecosystems.
