A Refreshed Haller Farmers App
We’re delighted to launch a refreshed version of our award-winning Haller Farmers App, now available to download on the App and Google Play Stores. We’d love your feedback on the updates, and any content you’d like to see added moving forward.
An estimated 500 million smallholder farmers are at the heart of our global agricultural industry, with more than 2 billion people depending on them for their livelihoods. Their potential impact on the environment (both positive and negative) should not be underestimated.
The Haller Foundation was founded 20 years ago, inspired by the work of Dr Rene Haller, who transformed a barren quarry near Mombasa into a thriving ecosystem over 25 years, positively impacting the once degraded environment and the communities reliant on it.
The Haller Foundation’s mission was simple: Help smallholder farmers improve their livelihoods while protecting and restoring the environments around them. Our work focused on launching smallholder communities on a journey towards regenerative agriculture, making smarter use of the limited resources available to produce a positive multiplier effect on the environment and economic opportunities.
10 years after our foundation, the Haller Farmers Web App was launched. An innovation in the sustainable development space, it tapped into the rising use of technology across Africa (and especially in rural communities), providing smallholder farmers with an accessible guide to regenerative agriculture they could use whenever they needed.
4 years ago, that web app became even more accessible as we launched a mobile version on the Google Play and Apple Stores. Available in both English and Swahili, it was intended to be an easy-to-navigate guide and handbook for smallholder farmers at all stages across the Haller Journey.
Awarded the best Android App of the year in 2020, the launch responded to the increased use of mobile technology across Sub-Saharan Africa. Since then, the app has been downloaded in over 100 countries worldwide, with new content being added as Haller expands our partnership network.
Earlier this year we collaborated with La Maison de l'Artemisia to make the Haller Farmers App available in French, the third most spoken language across the African continent. The partnership not only made existing sustainable agriculture techniques more readily accessible to hundreds of millions more smallholder farmers, it also added a new wealth of medicinal plant knowledge to the app.
The role of mobile technologies has only expanded over the last four years since the launch of our first app. Last year, Haller was involved in a survey of smallholder farmers across 15 African countries, investigating the current use of mobile technology. The survey revealed the high penetration of mobile phone usage across the continent, with 95% of respondents having access to a mobile phone.
Critically, it revealed the appetite for the further incorporation of these new technologies into smallholder farming practices. 83% of respondents were interested in incorporating mobile technology into their farming. However, just 36% were currently using their phones for farming-related activities. The continued need for innovation in the space was clear.
Which brings us to today. 20 years after our foundation, we’re delighted to launch a refreshed version of the Haller Farmers App. Work began on the refresh last year, with help from the JP Morgan Force for Good program. The team at JP Morgan supported Haller to realise new wireframes for the Haller Farmers App, enabling multiple languages to be hosted, and new content from partners to be supported.
The partnership also focused on improving the user experience, making the app easier to navigate, and helping smallholder farmers find the information they need, faster. All of these updates and improvements were brought to life with the help of our long-term technology partner, Steepsoft AI.
Mobile technology’s impact is set to only grow over the next 20 years. The Haller Farmers App aims to harness this development into positive environmental and economic impacts.
The app can be downloaded on the App and Google Play Stores.
