closes on Monday, 14th May, 2018.

Wanted: Digital Innovations to Stop Fall Armyworm in its Tracks

About the Prize

At present, FAW in Africa threatens harvests and economic growth on a continental scale. Feed the Future, the U.S. Government\’s global hunger and food security initiative, aims to transform lives toward a world where people no longer face extreme poverty, undernutrition and hunger.  To achieve this, Feed the Future works hand-in-hand with partner countries to develop their agriculture sectors and break the cycle of poverty and hunger. In particular, Feed the Future aims to:

• Increase agricultural productivity and generate opportunities for economic growth and trade in developing countries.
• Boost the harvests and incomes of rural smallholder farmers, who are the key to unlocking agricultural growth and transforming economies.
• Improve agricultural research and development and get existing, proven technologies to more people.
• Increase resilience to prevent recurrent crises and help communities better withstand and bounce back from crises when they do happen.

Five prizes totalling $400,000 in prizes will be made as follows:

• One grand prize of $150,000 to the most viable solution
• Two significant awards of $75,000 to the most promising solutions
• Two up and comer awards of $50,000 to early stage developments that show the most potential

With advances in digital communications, social networks, satellite imagery, electronic data collection and sharing, sensing technologies, crowdsourcing, and the global movement to share open data, more information than ever can be efficiently communicated and made relevant for farmers.  While digital tools and approaches are not the only solutions to fall armyworm (and depending on the context, may not be appropriate), technological solutions can help serve as a force multiplier to already strained advisory services.

Prize Statement

The prize is seeking digital tools and approaches that provide timely, context-specific information that enable smallholder farmers and those who support them to identify, treat, and track incidence of fall armyworm in Africa.

This prize is focused on sourcing and sparking innovations for African smallholder farmers and those that work with them. But given the global nature of this problem, we anticipate some of these solutions could have relevance beyond Africa.

The prize seeks solutions that:

• Enable smallholder farmers and those who support them to accurately identify incidence of fall armyworm in their crops.
• Produce timely, context appropriate, and empowering insights for smallholder farmers to treat the incidence of fall armyworm.
• Reduce productivity losses caused by fall armyworm among those using the tool or approach.
• Ensure the appropriate and responsible use of pest management assessments, tools, and interventions.
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Click here to apply