How to Build a Mobile App for Agriculture Industry?

Farming is not just a way of life, it keeps everybody alive!

According to a study conducted by Zion, the global smart agriculture market will grow from $5 billion in 2017 to over $15 billion in 2025.

In the 21st century, agriculture app development has witnessed skyrocketing growth and it is interesting to see that a lot of agro-business owners are interested in how to build an agriculture app.

In the beginning, combining traditional agriculture practices with modern-day mobile apps may daze you but in retrospect, it makes a lot of sense. Farmers are all in when it comes to adopting new and emerging technologies in order to amplify their business.

Before we talk about how to build an agricultural mobile app, let’s understand why mobile apps are important for the agriculture industry.

Importance Of Mobile Apps For The Agricultural Industry

There are plenty of problems that an agriculture mobile app can tackle. These fall into four major domains where mobile applications can become particularly useful.

Providing information

A mobile app has the potential to facilitate farmers with important information that can help them enhance their cultivation, planting, and harvesting.

The information that can be transmitted through popups may include weather forecasts, data on disease, and new products to help the farmers increase crop productivity.

Agriculture app development can also help train and guide the new workforce in the industry along with allowing the experienced farmers to implement new methods comfortably.

Offering Financial Services

Mobile apps are a great tool for offering financial services to farmers. When we say financial services, they include payments, loans, and general banking services.

Furthermore, the mobile app could also help farmers select an insurance plan allowing them to pay for it through the application.

Easy Access To Input Markets

Easy access to input markets, in general, is extremely important in agriculture app development. The inputs include all the necessary products a farmer needs in order to operate his farm conveniently, such as:

• Seeds
• Fertilizers
• Pesticides
• Irrigation system
• Electricity
• Workers

With agriculture app development, the app can essentially turn into a marketplace for farmers where they would have the access to find all the vital products needed to amplify production while allowing them to compare the prices.

Easy Access To Output Markets

Selling is yet another major challenge that farmers come across. Agriculture app development plays a crucial role in bridging this gap. Building a mobile app can help farmers provide price information, marketplace information, and the link between supply chains.

In other words, agriculture app development helps farmers create an all-new marketplace where they’d have the power to control and compare various products while getting the opportunity to promote their products.

Increased efficiency

The entire point of adopting new and emerging technologies for business is to improve efficiency.  It is likewise for the agriculture industry. Think about it. High tech equipment when coupled with agriculture app development, imagine the kind of efficiency the industry would witness.

The amalgamation of GPS tracking, enhanced communication, and smart irrigation equipment can help farmers save ample time while increasing efficiency.

Payments

In terms of payments, mobile applications are a great tool that has the potential to save a lot of hassle for the farmers as well as for the end-users.

With the integration of a payment gateway on the app, it’s easy and swift to get the job done.

What Can Mobile Apps Do for the Agriculture Industry?

App Benefits For The Agriculture Industry	App Benefits For Farmers
Access To Information Market Information Climate Information	Better Prices.
Access To Finance Insurance Banking Credit	Better Risk and Disaster Management
Control Over The Farm Farming Information	Real-Time Updates About Their Farmland
Enhanced Distribution Network Direct Link Between Farmers, Suppliers, and Buyers	Higher Prices For Production Through Effective Distribution

Agriculture Mobile Apps From Across The World – Something To Ponder On!

• RML (Reuters Market Light) – A subscription-based SMS service that sends out information to the locals. RML provides all the required information on commodity prices, weather, and crop cultivation.

  The highlight of RML is that it provides real-time cost information to farmers enabling the farmers to make the right call in terms of selling or holding the crops.

• Jayalaxmi Agrotech designed and developed an agricultural mobile app for the local farmers. The app is available in regional languages breaking the language barrier and the aim of it is to deliver relevant information in the simplest form. Today, several farmers in Asia are benefiting from this agriculture app development initiative.
• FarmerLink – A mobile solution developed to enable the coconut value chain in the Philippines. The solution amalgamates satellite data with the farm data collected using field agents for coconut farmers to enhance their productivity.
• Vodacom joined hands with GIZ and Manstrat Agricultural Intelligence Solutions and came up with a mobile solution in order to brace small scale farmers in South Africa into commercial agriculture.

How To Build An Agriculture App?

Now that we know the importance of mobile apps in the agriculture industry and we are aware of all the must-have features for agriculture app development, let’s talk about how to build an agriculture app.

Building an agriculture mobile app is not a cakewalk, rather it’s a tricky process where preparation is the key.

To build an agriculture app, it is vital to choose the right framework. Here are 3 hybrid mobile app development frameworks that have gained universal recognition and are currently used by the leading industries.

React Native

React Native is one of the most popular frameworks for mobile app development.  The framework is particularly popular for building native applications. What’s amazing about this framework is that it is easy to find high-quality tutorials for it on the internet.

React Native has immense potential to evolve and gain popularity which makes it a great framework to build your business on. It is best that you choose the top React Native development company to help you build the product you want.

Why React Native?

• Can use the code of different native platforms.
• Facilitates automatic error detection.
• Allows alterations on a running server.

JQuery Mobile

JQuery is not as typical as other hybrid frameworks. This framework doesn’t try to adopt a native feel rather, it defends its individuality and yet works on multiple platforms without any issues.

JQuery is popular specifically when you wish to build something unique instead of sticking to template designs.

Why JQuery Mobile?

• User-friendly.
• Requires minimum efforts to create different app elements.
• Apps adapt to users’ devices and screen sizes.
• The framework mainly uses HTML5 and JavaScript
• Includes addon for creating custom themes.

Flutter

Flutter is a popular mobile app framework that was introduced by Google and is apt for creating native-looking mobile apps for multiple operating systems.

This mobile app framework was launched recently and the kind of popularity it has gained is incredible.

Why Flutter?

• Flutter is an Open-source technology
• Facilitates Real-time updates.
• Compatible with multiple operating systems.
• Flutter facilitates a vast choice of widgets for easy customization.
• All key features are at the developer’s fingertips.

Agriculture App Development -Must-Have Features!

Mobile agriculture has successfully entered uncharted territory. Agriculture app development today is effectively helping many agriculturists and agriculture-based businesses grow and expand their production to reach a wider market.

It’s probably never been so exciting nor intriguing to be in the agriculture business, wouldn’t you agree? Having said that, your agricultural business mobile application must be loaded with features that are useful, easy to use, and help you amplify the business.

Here are some must-have features that an agribusinesses owner should include in the process of agriculture app development.

• Weather Forecasting
  One of the most important features in the process of agriculture app development is weather forecasting. Using these features, the farmers would be able to identify the weather and suitability to grow crops well in advance helping them take the right measures to insure their crops.
• Crop Disease Treatment
  Crop disease treatment is a beneficial feature to include in agriculture app development as the farmers would be able to easily connect with specialists who could help them with the right treatment advice.

  This phenomenal feature would allow the farmers to take consultation through video conference without them having to physically go anywhere.

• GPS Tracking
  Adding the feature of GPS tracking in an agriculture app development can add more value to the app than you can imagine.
  This feature would enable the demonstration of the entire farmland in a guide that would help the farmers monitor crops at any given point in time.
• Goods Listing
  Goods listing is a great feature if the agriculture app development being carried out is essentially a marketplace where you could list down the goods like pesticides, seeds, and equipment.
• Agriculture Schedule
  Scheduling is a fantastic feature to keep in an agricultural application in order to maintain the crop timetable to make it beneficial for the farmers and another agro-industry workforce.
• Calendar
  A calendar is again one of the must-have features for agriculture app development. Using this feature, the farmer would be able to impart a calendar to the laborers to keep the farms sorted and perfect.
• Payment Gateway
  Just like in any other application, payment gateway is another important feature that an agriculture-based app must facilitate.

If the agriculture app development is focused on building a marketplace, having a payment gateway becomes mandatory where the user can pay for the products and equipment.

Final Thoughts

Today, there are plenty of agriculture-based mobile applications solving a variety of problems while helping farmers work smartly in a result-driven manner.

Although mobile software is already popular and is used in a lot of ways in this industry, there are a few areas where mobile apps have proven to be more useful and result oriented.

Some of the current trends in agriculture mobile apps include apps for drones, marketplaces, disease management, and location-based apps.

RNF Technologies is one of the top Agriculture App Development companies and our team of skilled Mobile App developers is well versed in building amazing agriculture apps.

Got a project in mind? Why not test our skills? We can help you build custom software and mobile app solutions for your business. Let’s discuss it!