The GSMA, a global body that represents the interests of over 1000 mobile operators and suppliers, launched the mFarmer Initiative Fund today, in Cape Town South Africa. The Fund, which will run until 2013, is backed by financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

If successfully implemented, the mFarmer Fund will enable the provision of more efficient farm extension services to 2 million of the world’s poorest farmers. The Fund will target “mobile communications service providers, in partnership with other public and private sector agricultural organizations, to provide information and advisory services to smallholder farmers in developing countries living under US$2 per day”.

The initiative will target 12 countries: India, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. However, the technologies developed and lessons learned will be shared globally. The mobile sector advocate said the initiative will function through competitive and deadline-driven grants. For more on the criteria for grants from the mFarmer Fund, please click here.

The Fund is part of GSMA’s thrust to fully deploy and integrate mobile technology into agricultural management, to boost productivity and ensure food security, under its flagship Mobile Agriculture (mAgri) Programme.

The GSMA project will further promote demand-driven, use inspired mobile tools for farmers. The rapid rise in mobile phone subscriptions, in even the outskirts of the developing world, presents opportunities to improve the lives of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid.