FarmData Pilot
Low-cost sensors and simple dashboards that give smallholder cooperatives weather, price and soil information they can act on.
Farmers already make decisions with data. The question is whether it is a rumour at the market or a reading from their own field.
FarmData works with two smallholder cooperatives on the Jos Plateau. Each cooperative receives low-cost soil and weather sensors, a shared tablet and a simple dashboard that combines field readings with market prices from nearby towns. The pilot runs across two growing seasons so that we can see whether better information changes planting, storage and selling decisions.
Cheap sensors, one shared screen per cooperative, and a weekly conversation about what the numbers mean.
A Foundation agronomist and a data fellow visit each cooperative weekly during the season to read the dashboard together and record decisions. The dashboard is built with the cooperative and shows only what members asked for. Data belongs to the cooperative. We publish aggregate findings and the dashboard code openly at the end of the pilot.
Soil moisture and weather sensors for shared plots
A tablet and a plain-language dashboard
Weekly market prices from nearby towns
Weekly visits from an agronomist and data fellow
Ownership of their data and an open-source dashboard
Aims and objectives this programme serves
03 · Monitoring and evaluation
05 · Tools, devices and connectivity
Targets, not results. Outcomes will be published here as cohorts complete, with the method used to measure them.
