FutureFarm
- Challenge:SDG 13: Climate Action
- Co-Funders:Irish Aid
- Phase:Concept
- Team Lead:Dr Annmarie Ryan, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick
- Partner Country Team Lead:Dr Anthony Gidudu, Dean, the School of the Built Environment (SBE) and an associate professor at the Department of Geomatics and Land Management at Makerere University (MU)
- Team Co-Lead:Dr Eoin O’Connell, University of Limerick
Funders
Co-funded by: Irish Aid
New technology is opening up opportunities for smallholder farmers to be integrated into the broader agri-food system. We want to help those farmers to co-design solutions to climate change specific to their locations and lives, in this case in Uganda. We hope to achieve the triple win of increased productivity, enhanced resilience and reduced emissions.
We will achieve this goal through the design and development of affordable climate-smart technologies that can be used by vulnerable communities immediately. Smallholder farmers will have access to data to support their decisions. These data will come through a bespoke remote sensing network via mobile phone and community-based data translators. We will test a Futures Innovation Platform to allow smallholder farmer communities to use data to decode the changing nature of agriculture systems, and imagine future scenarios for the region – allowing forecasting to become a means of prevention and allowing the communities to work on strategies and solutions leading towards their preferred futures.