No, not Facebook – Farmboek. That’s the name of a new interactive web service that teaches South African farmers to grow cops in a smarter way.

Developed by farmer Andre Groenewald and mechanical engineer Johannes Abbott, the online platform is designed to provide farmers with the latest agriculture industry information as well as a product, service and distributor directory. But it’s about so much more than just basic farming news and updates.

SA agricultural company Syngenta has designed a weather-forecasting tool specifically for Farmboek. ‘It was created in line with the company’s SmartFarm approach – a strategy aimed at replacing conventional farming methods – to answer weather-specific questions and offer a “spray window” to determine the best time to spray particular products, as well as what the various and best methods of doing so are’, says Linda van der Merwe, Syngenta SA’s head of customer marketing.

29 September 2015