Goho App: helping Zimbabwe’s young farmers tackle climate change

Admire Moyo is an agri-entrepreneur from Zimbabwe and the creator of the Goho mobile e-learning app, which offers young farmers an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of traditional farming practices to better manage the effects of climate change.

Admire Moyo, creator of Goho App, a mobile e-learning application that provides quality information to young farmers to help them overcome the effects of climate change and succeed in the agribusiness sector. (Photo: Courtesy of Goho App)

Farming is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy with 33.3 million hectares of land used for agriculture. Farming is also the main source of livelihood for most of the country’s population, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN (FAO).

While many young people are looking to embark on a career in agriculture, young farmers often lack easy access to the agricultural information they need to succeed. Admire Moyo, who grew up in a community of smallholder farmers, was all too familiar with the economic impact that limited access to information was having on his community. In an interview with the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), he notes, “some farmers had limited knowledge of agricultural practices,” and “limited access to markets.”

To address this problem, he set about developing the Goho app, which provides farmers with ready access to vital information about soil conditions, crops, fertilizers, and harvesting practices, as well as farming equipment and seed suppliers. To date, the app has been downloaded by over 500 users.

With the Goho app – Goho means harvest in the Shona language – farmers have the knowledge they need at their fingertips.

“I run a nursery and sometimes need to investigate new farming techniques, and I have been getting answers from Goho App," explains Mr. Katikiti from Gweru, Zimbabwe.

“The Goho app addresses the different issues being faced by farmers by offering different services and information such as: real time prices of farm produce at the marketplace, the best time to plant crops and their seasons, agricultural input suppliers, and a guide to exporting farm produce,” Admire Moyo explains.

The App provides real-time updates on prices at the Mbare Musika market, the main vegetable and fruit trading market in Mbare, Zimbabwe. By tracking these market trends with the Goho App, young farmers can optimize the returns on their agricultural products, expand their businesses and support the development of the regional economy.

An app to fight climate change

Goho App also has the potential to help farmers anticipate and cope with the effects of climate change, and thereby to mitigate its impact on farming livelihoods.

"At Goho we offer solutions to reduce the impact of climate change on farmers through farming methods such as crop rotation. This will result in improved soil structure, reduced soil erosion, lower greenhouse gas emissions and less water pollution," Moyo explains.

The Goho App also facilitates communication between farmers, enabling them to exchange ideas and share information and advice with surrounding communities on climate-related issues. It is proving particularly useful in enabling the development of local responses that build on Indigenous knowledge, practices and value systems.

“The benefits of connecting farmers on social media forums are that farmers can share valuable information and can also market their farm products,” Moyo says, noting that Goho App currently offers access to 13 social groups on Facebook and Twitter that farmers can join.

The Goho App provides farming information to its 500 users to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change in Zimbabwe. (Photo: Courtesy of Goho App)

Moyo recognizes the importance of intellectual property (IP) to his business, and, of course, to those of the farmers he serves. As soon as his app was ready for launch, he set about registering “Goho” as a trademark.

“Protecting the Goho App with trademark rights was an important first step in building up the credibility of my brand, and an investment for its future development and deployment, so that a greater number of small-holders can benefit from it,” he notes.