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A crowdsourcing experiment was carried out in Mauritius to find out where the island’s breadfruit trees are located. However, the contributors’ lack of ICT skills made for disappointing results.
Breadfruit is a traditional crop in Mauritius that has been produced mainly in backyards. The authorities, however, identified breadfruit as an alternative source of carbohydrates for imported rice and wheat, which are the main staple foods in Mauritius. This resulted in a campaign to increase local breadfruit production for food security and export purposes.
In 2011, in line with the food security policy of the government, the Food and Agricultural Research Council established the Mauritius Breadfruit Sector Consortium. The consortium consists of public and private agricultural institutions collaborating to develop breadfruit production in Mauritius. The initiative is supported by the Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Research for Development (PAEPARD). Its main aim is to develop a value chain approach and an action plan.
Since there are no commercial breadfruit farms in Mauritius and there are no orchards as such in the country, there are no official figures available about annual production. It is estimated to be more than 600 tonnes a year. The geographical location of breadfruit trees on the island is also unknown. For that reason, a crowdsourcing experiment using Google Maps was launched in Mauritius in February 2012 by the Mauritius Breadfruit Sector Consortium.
First, the consortium needed a platform for communication and information sharing among its stakeholders. They opted for a Wiki, because it would serve as a useful and accessible online platform for information sharing and collaboration. The consortium’s wiki supports Web 2.0 applications, so a Google Map was added. Google Map enables users to add breadfruit trees in Mauritius onto the map. It was chosen because it is a free web tool, with a user-friendly reputation. Pinpointing trees on the map is meant to benefit retailers, processors, exporters, and research scientists developing new varieties.
For each new entry, the tree needs to be labeled (for example, Breadfruit001) and people must provide their name and are encouraged to enter a description (for example, date spotted, flowering and fruiting stage, number and shape of fruit). Based on this information and the location of the tree, administrators can differentiate between useful and less useful entries. If there is any doubt regarding the location of a tree, the administrator adds a note to the description, and if no one responds, trees that appear to be wrongly placed will be removed from the map.
Unfortunately, only two members of the consortium initially contributed to the map after it was introduced. Feedback began trickling in from other consortium members who said that they were having difficulty adding trees to the map as they did not understand how to use Google Maps. This led to the development of a tutorial, in order to respond to the needs of the consortium members and the public.
The tutorial was accompanied by training sessions, and the platform was massively promoted on social media. This led more people to contribute, though it became apparent that the public needed time to understand the use and importance of the Google Map platform before contributing. The main problems are trees being placed in wrong locations on the map (in the sea or in the middle of a street), so the administrator has to check new entries regularly and remove wrongly placed trees.
Moreover, when the crowdsourcing activity started, breadfruit was in season, so trees were easily spotted because they had large leaves and spherical or oblong fruits. As the fruiting season came to an end, contributions to the Google Map slowed down too.
The result is that there are presently over 60 trees on the map with descriptions. A disappointing result so far if one considers that there are an estimated 3,000 or more breadfruit trees on Mauritius. Furthermore, contributors did not use GPS on their cell phones to add a tree. The trees were mainly entered on computers. In some cases, partners confirmed that these tools are meant for the youth, despite training sessions and product demonstrations. Another disappointment is that until now the consortium has been unable to receive any input from the farming community due to a lack of promotion by traditional means, such as radio and national television, since not many farmers use social media networks.
Several months after the implementation of the Google Map, however, consortium stakeholders are already using the map to locate trees for different purposes. For example, by using this map, samples were taken at different locations for research purposes, propagation and sales. The project managers have learned from the difficulties and are continuing with the activity to get the
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