Coffee plants belonging to growers on the edges of the Peruvian Amazon basin have been infected with a fungus said to have originated in Kenya more than a century ago.

在秘鲁亚马逊盆地边上，种植户的咖啡树感染了一种真菌，据说这种真菌起源于一个多世纪以前的肯尼亚。

For many smallholders, advice from African growers on how to cope would be as welcome as water in the desert. But, as many do not have internet access, it can be just as hard to come by.

对于很多小农户而言，来自非洲种植户有关如何应对这种真菌的建议如同沙漠中的水一样珍贵。然而，由于很多种植户无法上网，他们很难获得这种建议。

That is what WeFarm, a London-based start-up, is aiming to achieve for the more than 43,000 smallholders signed up to its services, who use simple mobile phone text messages to share advice and information. For Arianna Valentini, WeFarm’s Peru-based Latin America co-ordinator, the service is “creating a social network of farmers”.

这就是总部位于伦敦的初创企业WeFarm计划为签约其服务的逾4.3万小农户实现的目标，他们利用简单的手机短信共享建议和信息。对于WeFarm驻秘鲁的拉美协调员阿里安娜•瓦伦蒂尼(Arianna Valentini)而言，这种服务“为农户创建了一个社交网络”。

With established programmes in Peru, Kenya and Uganda, and pilots in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, it offers a peer-to-peer service that lets farmers ask questions and receive crowdsourced responses. WeFarm is now looking to move into Colombia, Brazil, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and India.

该公司在秘鲁、肯尼亚和乌干达已实施项目，在海地和多米尼加实施了试点项目，他们为农户提供对等网络服务，让他们提问并获得众人推荐的答复。WeFarm正计划进军哥伦比亚、巴西、科特迪瓦、坦桑尼亚和印度。

“This has been useful to coffee farmers here, especially because many like me do not have internet at home but do have mobile phones,” says Celia Aysana, part of a co-operative of coffee growers near San Martín de Pangoa in Peru. “You can get quick answers from Andean as well as African farmers.”

“这对这里的咖啡农户很有用，特别是因为很多像我这样的人家里无法上网，但有手机，”秘鲁San Martín de Pangoa附近的咖啡树种植户合作社中的塞莉娅•阿伊桑那(Celia Aysana)表示，“你可以从安地斯山和非洲农户那里快速获得解答。”

Even if most smallholders do not have access to a computer or a smartphone, many at least do have basic phones. According to Peru’s statistics agency, 85 per cent of households have at least one mobile, while just 40 per cent of the country’s population uses the internet. Moreover, a report in January by the World Bank says that “nearly 70 per cent of the bottom fifth of the population in developing countries own a mobile phone”.

即便多数小农户没有电脑或智能手机，但很多人至少拥有普通手机。根据秘鲁统计机构的数据，85%的家庭至少拥有一部手机，同时该国仅有40%的人口可以上网。另外，世界银行(World Bank) 1月发布的一份报告称，“在发展中国家收入最低的五分之一人口中，近70%拥有手机。”

Carolina Trivelli, an economist and Peru’s former minister of development and social inclusion, who now runs a nationwide mobile money initiative, says: “There is huge potential in trying to squeeze as much as possible out of these basic mobile phones, particularly in rural areas.”

经济学家、秘鲁发展和社会融合部前部长卡罗丽娜•特里维利(Carolina Trivelli)表示：“充分利用这些基础手机有着巨大潜力，特别是在农村地区。”特里维利现在执掌一个全国移动货币计划。

Kenny Ewan, WeFarm’s chief executive, developed the service following experience working in Latin America with Cafédirect Producers’ Foundation, a UK-based charity, and other non-governmental bodies. It was launched last year with ￡500,000 seed funding from tech company Google through the Google Impact Challenge, and Wayra, the incubation hub of Telefónica, a telecommunications company.

WeFarm首席执行官肯尼•埃万(Kenny Ewan)开发了这项服务，此前他曾供职于总部位于英国的慈善组织Cafédirect Producers’ Foundation以及其他非政府组织，其间在拉美工作过。去年，WeFarm借助科技公司谷歌(Google)（通过谷歌Impact Challenge）和西班牙电信(Telefónica)的创新孵化中心Wayra的50万英镑种子基金成立。

Mr Ewan says he wanted to challenge the traditional model of how information is shared. “In international development, the power usually resides with the people who are ‘experts’, but in reality farming communities already have lots of expertise,” he says. “We’re giving farmers a voice and showing them that their knowledge is valuable, and I think that that’s a very powerful message.”

埃万表示，他希望挑战传统的信息共享模式。“在国际发展领域，权力通常掌握在‘专家’手中，但实际上，农业社区已具备大量专长，”他表示，“我们正赋予农户话语权，并向他们展示知识是宝贵的，我认为，这是一个非常强大的信息。”

WeFarm now hopes to raise ￡2.3m so it can grow its service to reach 1m farmers around the world by the end of 2016.

WeFarm现在希望筹集230万英镑，使其能在2016年底之前将其服务覆盖全球100万农户。

Smallholders using WeFarm send texts to an in-country shortcode for free. The message is then processed and filtered automatically by the organisation’s online system. An algorithm determines who are the most relevant people to receive each question and WeFarm forwards the answers.

利用WeFarm的小农户免费向一个国内短代码发送文本信息。该信息由WeFarm的在线系统自动处理并过滤。算法决定了谁是接到每一个问题的最相关人士，WeFarm会转发答案。

For instance, answers to coffee questions are directed to coffee farmers. The farmer who asks the question receives a handful of messages from local, national or international peers. Ms Aysana has already had tips on how to deal with rust, a fungal disease affecting coffee plants.

例如，咖啡问题的答案会发送给咖啡农户。提问的农户会从当地、全国或国际同业那里获得几条信息。阿伊桑那已获得有关如何应对影响咖啡树叶的锈病（一种真菌病害）的建议。

WeFarm has a network of volunteer translators for international answers — say from a Kenyan farmer replying in English or Swahili to a Spanish-speaking one in Peru — and can also provide answers in French and Haitian Creole.

WeFarm拥有一个翻译国际答案的志愿者网络，例如从一位用英文或斯瓦希里语答复的肯尼亚农户到一位说西班牙语的秘鲁农户，还可以提供法语和海地克里奥尔语的解答。

Ms Valentini says WeFarm is also looking at providing translations in Quechua, which is widely spoken in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

瓦伦蒂尼表示，WeFarm也在考虑提供克丘亚语翻译，这种语言在玻利维亚、秘鲁和厄瓜多尔广泛使用。

In Peru, Ms Valentini first started spreading the word through coffee and cocoa co-operatives and appearances on local and national radio shows.

在秘鲁，瓦伦蒂尼最初开始通过咖啡和可可豆合作社，以及现身地方和全国广播节目来推广这种服务。

What started as an advice service for coffee and cocoa growers now deals with problems related to banana, cotton and other crops.

最初的建议服务是针对咖啡和可可豆种植户，如今应对的问题涉及香蕉、棉花和其他农作物。

Increasingly, says Ms Valentini, there are questions about animal husbandry. For example, a coffee farmer from Kenya’s Meru district has boosted his income by rearing rabbits.

瓦伦蒂尼表示，现在有关畜牧业的问题越来越多。例如，来自肯尼亚梅鲁区的一位咖啡农户通过饲养兔子增加了收入。

After sending a text message, he started receiving answers from a woman who had bred rabbits for more than 20 years in Peru’s region of Cajamarca. She offered advice on the best rabbit breeds, how to raise them and what to feed them. Six months later, the Kenyan farmer had sold 50 rabbits.

在发送短信后，他开始从一位在秘鲁卡哈马卡(Cajamarca)地区饲养了20多年兔子的女士那里获得解答。她提供了内行的建议，涵盖最佳兔子品种、如何饲养以及饲料。6个月后，那位肯尼亚农户卖掉了50只兔子。