Slashroots Foundation’s Code For the Caribbean Success Story Featured on BBC Radio

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BBC radio’s Click highlighted the outputs of the Jamaican startup non-profit  Slashroots Foundation Code for the Caribbean’s Fellowship program this week. Listen to the above recording for the story of Jamaica’s use of technology to combat praedial larceny  – the theft of livestock and crops from agricultural farms. Listen to the Audio Interview here. http://bit.ly/1mZ8HZR

Back Ground

The new praedial larceny software, developed by a group of Fellows under the Code for the Caribbean Fellowship Programme, will assist police officers in confirming information provided by persons found with agricultural produce during routine stop and search operations.

With the application, law enforcers will be able to send text messages to an automated system to determine whether agricultural produce was purchased from farmers registered with the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) and Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS).

The text message, consisting of the receipt number or farmer identification number is then sent to a server, which queries the database and immediately presents the information and confirm or deny what was provided in a follow up text.

Praedial Larceny is the theft of agricultural produce or livestock from a farm or estate. It continues to be one of the greatest deterrents to investments in agriculture and is believed to cost the sector between $5 billion and $6 billion, annually. More