Help Rural Communities in their access to food

ACDI developed the Kokue mobile application with the aim of generating a support tool for producers of agroecological, family scale orchards. Kokue provides important information on how to manage their gardens, when to sow, when to harvest, how to associate the various crops, among others. In addition, with the accompaniment of ACDI, more than 1000 families participate in technical field training on agroforestry, water conservation and harvesting to strengthen their resilience and better adapt to the impacts of climate change.

This October a new segment of the mobile app Kokue was launched: “BioPreparations”. It was presented to the community of Santa Ana, Tucumán, Argentina, in a social meeting where small producers were able to learn about the benefits of using Kokue. The farmers were able to carry out practical exercises on how to make the structure of the garden, how to protect the crops from climatic events, and how to combat unwanted insects with the preparations offered by the app.

Thanks to the biopreparations section, producers can learn how to make homemade preparations, with easily accessible inputs, to combat unwanted insects, such as slugs, bedbugs, scale insects, fungi, etc. One of the most sought-after questions by producers is how they can fight ants. The recipe included in the Kokue App has had great results for producers who have been able to prepare and apply it in their gardens. Another of the preparations that had a good impact was the one offered to combat aphids, as explained by Micaela. She is an agronomy student, and she was able to tell us how this preparation helped her fight the plague of ants in her garden.

In the same way, the new section also offers recipes to strengthen crops and fertilize the land: green manure, compost, manure, nettle slurry, among others. In this way, producers can learn how to make these preparations to keep a living soil with biological processes of organic materials.

Kokue continues to be part of the productive life of family-scale orchard growers, helping them improve their productivity, their food sovereignty, and on occasions Kokue collaborates so, by increasing their productivity, they can have surpluses for sale.

Luciana lives in San Salvador de Jujuy, Jujuy province, in northern Argentina. She participated in training provided by ACDI's technical team on agroecological practices, adaptation to climate vulnerability, and access to adequate nutrition. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the technical support in the field was interrupted, but thanks to the Kokue App, she now has the necessary technical information to continue managing and monitoring her agroecological garden, within the framework of the ICT4resilience to project. Climate Change.

Using the app, you have access to the appropriate agroecology techniques to increase the productivity of your garden, being able to improve the situation of the garden, and thus access adequate nutritional nutrition for the family thanks to the incorporation of vegetables in consumption daily.

With the support of her sister and a neighbor of hers, she made seedlings of lettuce, chard, tomato, strawberry, and chili pepper, which she managed to transplant into pots once the App indicated through notifications that she could specify it. In her house, he adapted a section of the patio specifically to install her garden. With the support of Kokue, she obtained the necessary information and useful tips to protect her crops from the sun, wind, and extreme temperatures.

"With the app I was able to see how to improve my garden, understanding where it was convenient for me to plant to make better use of sunlight in some cases or shade, depending on the needs of each plant," said the young woman.
Notably, Kokue bridges the rural-urban knowledge gap by putting cutting-edge agroecological techniques directly into the hands of rural dwellers in an easy-to-use interface, without the need for constant Internet access, as most of the functions of the application are available offline.

Currently, Luciana hopes that her family can take advantage of the fruits of her harvests, contributing to her food and nutritional security. They also work on the management of new seeds and crops, appropriate to the time of year.