A cloud computing augmenting agricultural activities in Marginalized Rural Areas: A preliminary study

Marginalized Rural Areas (MRAs) practice farming and in most cases lack basic resources and skills to improve yields, which are often poor. This has led to famine, poverty, crime and rural to urban migration. Agricultural activities when practiced very well can alleviate such challenges in the country. We are therefore, developing a cloud computing model that seeks to improve agriculture as an activity in MRAs. It shall include a cloud architecture which is a Mobile information system and would be used by farmers (including subsistence farmers) to share (upload and download) information about the farming techniques, markets, weather, seeds, etc. In this paper, we present findings of a preliminary study of what common mobile devices are mostly used and what type of agriculture is mostly practiced by MRAs people. We collected data through close ended questionnaires that were given to farmers in Pongola in KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The preliminary study results show that 54% of farmers face challenges of pests and birds, 26% weather and 20% diseases affecting their livestock. 94% of farmers own mobile devices of which 59% of them are feature phones. 58% of the mobile phone owning farmers do not use them to access information regarding farming and lastly the most practiced type of agriculture in MRAs is subsistence farming with 97%, where famers focus on growing enough food to feed their own consumption.