SAMS: Empowering Rural Farmers

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SAMS: Empowering Rural Farmers

Born from personal experience in Bamenda, Britney Moukoko’s Smart Agricultural Monitoring System initiative brings AI-driven agricultural insights to Cameroonian farmers through simple mobile technology.

26 Aug 2026 14:33

F or millions of smallholder farmers across Cameroon, the main challenge is not simply producing food. It is making the right decision at the right time: knowing when to plant, irrigate, protect crops from changing weather, or sell produce under favorable market conditions. Within this context, the Smart Agricultural Monito ring System (SAMS), has emerged as a locally developed agritech solution designed to bring agri cultural intelligence directly to smallholders. SAMS stems from personal expe rience. The 20 year old brain behind the initiative, Britney Moukoko witnessed firsthand how deeply household security depends on a small farm’s output. Unfavorable weather and poor yields had severe economic consequences. Driven to act, she questioned how tech nology could become practical enough to help farmers prevent losses before they happen. What began as a proto type developed in 2022 during the TechGirls program at Virginia Tech has matured through field testing with over 100 farmers and stakeholders across Came roon’s North, Northwest, and Centre Regions. At its core, SAMS combines a so lar-powered monitoring kit which measures soil pH, humidity, temperature, and sunlight, with an AI-driven plat form. It operates via Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), that is, the service works through short codes starting with an asterisk (*) and ending with a hash (#). This operation mode allows farmers to receive actionable, crop-specific advice on basic mobil...