Climate change on cell phones

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The farmer who took this photo on November 13, 2011 writes, "It is clearly seen that short rains have started despite the fact that it first rained in October. As you can see, the farmers have just started planting crops." (Cell phone image, Sauti ya wakulima research project) swissinfo.ch

"Protecting water sources is a good thing as you can see," writes the farmer who took this image on August 31, 2011. "The trees around this pool help it to store water and this makes (the farmer) not feel the effects of climate change." (Cell phone image, Sauti ya wakulima research project) swissinfo.ch

This photo was taken on June 1, 2012. "I am in Miono village in Bagamoyo district," reports the farmer. "This is a maize farm which has been affected by drought. This implies that there is a high chance that the people in Miono will not be having enough food this year." (Cell phone image, Sauti ya wakulima research project) swissinfo.ch

Tanzanian farmers meet in the village to discuss their work in September 2012. "The main challenge that we are facing now is that we do not have modern working tools and enough capital to run our farming activities," writes the farmer. "If there were a reliable investor to support us in preparing our farms we would have done wonders in production." (Cell phone image, Sauti ya wakulima research project) swissinfo.ch

"This is a local orange tree with a number of fruits but is now being destroyed by pests and I do not have any means to eradicate them," writes the farmer who took this photo on July 3, 2011. (Cell phone image, Sauti ya wakulima research project) swissinfo.ch

Farmers participate in a research project on the best way to grow cassava, an essential crop. Photo taken March 21, 2012. (Cell phone image, Sauti ya wakulima research project) swissinfo.ch

The farmer who took this image on July 1, 2011 also interviewed his colleague, pictured here, who is a watermelon farmer. "The challenges are that we are facing a problem with water supply," said the melon farmer. "We are only using manmade wells which do not have much water." (Cell phone image, Sauti ya wakulima research project) swissinfo.ch

"Peas are one of our good crops," writes the farmer who took this photo in October 2011. "It is October now but you can see that these women are still benefiting from peas. I want to tell my fellow Tanzanians that the government is incurring a lot of costs to train agricultural officers and to supply us with these seeds so we should accept them and put them into practice." (Cell phone image, Sauti ya wakulima research project) swissinfo.ch

"This is a tree whose leaves are used to prepare mats, it is in the family of palm trees and grows on wetland areas," writes the farmer about this image from November 26, 2011. "This tree is in danger of extinction as the places where it grows (on wetland areas) are now converted into farmlands and along rivers where people are using these places for pasture. There will also be a change in weather as these trees plays a big role in storing underground water." (Cell phone image, Sauti ya wakulima research project) swissinfo.ch

This photo, also taken on November 26, 2011, shows a woman who makes mats out of the endangered palm plant. "Following these activities this tree will become extinct and the entrepreneurial (craftswomen) will be forced to walk for a long distance looking for materials to prepare the mats," writes the photographer. (Cell phone image, Sauti ya wakulima research project) swissinfo.ch

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Sauti ya wakulima, "The voice of the farmers", is a collaborative research project based on cell phone images created by farmers in Tanzania and founded by climate researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

The farmers gather audiovisual evidence of their daily practices using smartphones and publish their images and voice recordings on the Internet.

The participants, a group of five men and five women, gather every Monday at the agricultural station in Chambezi. They use a laptop computer and a 3G Internet connection to view the images and hear the voice recordings that they posted during the week. They also pass the two available smartphones on to other participants, turning the phones into shared tools for communication.

The farmers at Chambezi not only struggle because of insufficient infrastructure and unreliable markets for their products, but they are also facing the challenges of a changing local climate. Less rain, less ground water and unprecedented threats caused by pests and plant diseases are some of the pressing issues that they have to deal with. They hope that by sharing their knowledge they can overcome the problems.