How do you share ideas – including potentially transformative ones – with people who do not have Internet access, are largely illiterate, and live far from paved roads? Even in today’s hyper-connected world, most farmers in Tanzania – who make up 75 percent of the country’s population of 48 million – have limited interaction with people outside their communities. Ideas, by extension, are slow to travel. Many small-scale farmers use outdated farming techniques when planting and harvesting their land, based on knowledge passed on from their ancestors. They also run the risk of being cheated in the market, if they do not have frequently updated price information for crops. Too often, this means that small-scale farmers experience low crop yields and remain trapped in a vicious cycle of hunger and poverty.

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