SARAI (Smarter Approaches to Reinvigorate Agriculture as an Industry)

The SARAI (Smarter Approaches to Reinvigorate Agriculture as an Industry) Initiative is a team effort combining the inputs from crop experts and IT specialists to jointly develop a knowledge portal and mobile applications (“apps”) that offer custom-tailored crop advisories to farmers. The SARAI apps include advisories to farmers on how to apply for loans and how to hire farm labor. SARAI developed several crop advisory apps for farmers. These apps serve as digital solutions specifically for advisories related to weather/rain, insect pests, and plant disease identifiers, and they also have a handy coffee tracker. SARAI lists three major apps: the SARAI Alerts app, the Smarter Pest and Disease Identification Technology (SPIDTECH) app, and the Coffee Application Harvest Date Estimator (CAPHE) app. The project SARAI has incorporated agricultural knowledge with open-source software, big data from satellites and automatic weather systems, and other existing technologies. The University of the Philippines Los Banos (UPLB) leads the program. It operates with funds from the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD). It counts on a team of more than 100 scientists, researchers, and programmers from 12 state universities and colleges and six government agencies nationwide.

Lead (category)

Multi-partners

Name of initiative lead (and partners)

University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB)

Categories of Digital initiative deliverables

Specific ICT technology product and/or service delivery

ICT products/solutions and services by category

Digital Agriculture

Digital Agrifood Services

Non ICT products and services (deliverables)

Business and governance structure

DI ICT-deliverables format

Mobile applications

Web-based platform

Primary stakeholders (beneficiaries, actors, enablers)

Farmers

Size, scale or scope of primary stakeholders

Digital Initiative development Stage

Fully operational - Growing and expanding stage

Measurable impacts on primary stakeholders and target beneficiaries

Initiative geographic scope (or coverage) (national, regional, sector specific, specific user co-horts etc)

National

All over Philippines

On-line resource links (Web-page links, links to videos, links to reports, etc)

Main DI webpage

Other useful link

Link to Digital village

Link to Digital solution