Learning from

CajùLab project: Drone-assisted land mapping for climate

smart cashew production
Country
Benin Can digital social innovation support the upscaling and
adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture best practices, how
and in which context ?

Project overview
Implemented by
Reason
Cashew nuts are Benin’s second largest export crop and the go-
vernment recently set a production target of 300,000 tonnes per
year instead of 120,000. However, growing evidence suggests that
recent growth of Benin’s cashew production expands into pre-
viously forested areas, thus eliminating the climate benefits of
plantations, reducing biodiversity and negatively impacting mar-
Budget ginalised populations.

349.238 €
With this in mind, relatively low cashew yields highlight the need
for an intensification of cashew production per hectare, that
Duration could be realised through better climate smart agricultural
06/2019-09/2021 practices.

Contributions to SDGs However, the cashew sector of Benin is characterised by a low de-
gree of structure and data availability, making it difficult for go-
vernment and training services to develop relevant policies and
efficiently direct resources.

Digital Social Innovation  

The CajùLab project is part of TechnoServe’s broader BeninCajù
program that provides training to smallholder farmers through
cooperatives about p​ lot and post-harvest management.

Implemented by The CajùLab project’s digital social innovation identifies plot

health and land management practices within cashew-produ-
cing areas in Benin, providing evidence through quality data and
enabling policymakers and training services to adjust resources
Financed by and services to smallholder farmers.
The digital social innovation works on two level:

Plantation level: collection of cashew trees imagery by drones carrying a multispectral camera
in Atacora and the Collines regions. Imagery is analysed by a machine-learning algorithm iden-
tifying cashew plot health and management practices.

National territory level: collection of cashew plot data by satellites to develop a state of play of
the cashew sector in Benin. Data are analysed by a machine-learning algorithm able to iden-
tify cashew crops from other trees.

This data is evaluated and disseminated through

An online remote sensing dashboard , designed for policymakers and training providers

An Action Plan on Climate-smart Cashew Production to scale sustainable farming practices

among 11,000 cashew farmers, including policy recommendations and a farmer training tar-
geting plan for the Ministry of Agriculture - MAEP (ATDA4) and the national farmer federation
FENAPAB.

From the perspective of the human rights-based approach (HRBA)   

The goal of the HRBA is, on the one hand, to empower rights holders – smallholder
farmers in Benin and cooperatives- to claim their rights and participate in their own deve-
lopment process. On the other hand, to share the capacities with duty bearers – the State - to
respect, protect and fulfil those rights.

The project has focused primarily on the duty bearer side, allowing for evidence-based policy
decisions, more efficient and equitable resource distribution, and tailoring of trainings provi-
ded to smallholder cashew farmers.

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 12.181 ha of cashew plantations were
mapped using drones

577.617 ha were mapped and analysed

using satellite prediction across five areas
in Benin covering 17 communes

Key messages
Drone and satellite mappings have allowed for the development of large databases that could
not be constructed based on manual observations. The added value of such a digital innovation
is its accuracy, speed, reliability and scope.

Satellite-assisted mapping has for the first time in the country’s history given the government
reliable data on the location and state of cashew crops in Benin, therefore allowing for an
overview of current production quantities and potential developments of the sector.

Drone imagery has for the first time in the country’s history made information available on
production practices and possible improvement in a very large number of plantations.

The dissemination of data collected through a user-friendly dashboard available on the web
has allowed training services to easily access information on specific plantations and therefore
to tailor their training to smallholder farmers. For example, they can directly identify that the
use of water is not efficient on a plot or village and train the farmers accordingly.

Cashew farmers are not the users of the digital social innovation but are the beneficiaries. The
dashboard has been used by 1. technicians from the Ministry of Agriculture to inform decision-
making based on accurate and timely information 2. training providers and cooperatives to tailor
their support to both male and female farmers.

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 The CajùLab project will allow me to increase
my yields and production and will motivate me
to take better care of my farm in the future
Sabiwo Tabe,
cashew farmer in the village of Gounin in
Parakou

Drone gives us the possibility to see

the invisible, as if we had eyes in the sky. It
can detect all the problems related to the
plantations
Ouriel Hountondji,
chief drone operator at AtlasGIS

The CajùLab project is welcome in this

digital age. I like that it is integrated in the
agricultural sector of Benin
Sahadatou Atta Kakayatchi,
farmer and president of the FENAPAB

More stories about

the project?

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 Lessons learned
Inclusion and equity   

Projects should be careful about inclusion and representativity while deciding which crops to
map. If the identification of crops to map comes from previously existing farmer registries, there
is a high risk that the process will be strongly biased towards male farmers as these registries
often rely on land ownership or – non-gender inclusive – social structures.

The possibility to produce information on a very large number of plantations makes the digital
social innovation more inclusive than regular, physical mapping that would only focus on top
producers and leave most small-scale farmers out.

Stakeholders and users’ responsiveness

It is important to address the fact that appropriation of a new digital tool may take some time,
whether by actors on the ground or in public institutions. A collaborative approach, continuous
learning and capacity sharing should be planned from the beginning.

Use of digital tools beyond project’s end

The survival of the digital social innovation relies on an ecosystem of skilled and empowered
people who will be able to continue developing, managing and using the data and dashboard.
Engagement of the department of the information system of the Ministry of Agriculture at
every step of the development to ensure skills transfer from TechnoServe to state technicians
was crucial, as well as continuous training and knowledge sharing among those technicians.

The use of the dashboard by government actors and their buy-in has been secured by (1)
The project’s alignment with the Government of Benin’s objectives regarding export and
digitalisation in the agricultural sector (2) Involvement of the government actors from the
beginning and throughout the project

The Action Plan describes the tools, methodologies and recommendations on how the
digital social innovation can be used to scale climate-smart cashew cultivations in the country.
It was developed with, presented and handed over to the Governement of Benin as a guide for
using digital tools to expand the cashew nut sector.

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 Perspectives
Based on the drone mappings of the plantations, as well as the mobilisation of farmers coope-
ratives, 10k smallholder cashew farmers were identified and will receive (semi-) personalised
training on plot management and climate-smart agricultural practices in the years to come.

The CajùLab project allowed to identify underlying needs of cashew farmers in generating land
rights. The drone mapping that was initially aimed at increasing the quality of training services
could also be used to allow (female) smallholder farmers to access land titles through plot mea-
surement.

The project has tested and optimised a methodology for drone and satellite-assisted map-
ping and analysis of cashew crops. This social digital innovation is replicable for other export
crops like coffee or shea.

This learning sheet has been developed in the framework of the Wehubit Knowledge Exchange Network
in collaboration with
Seth Ayim and Martin Boton (Technoserve)
And the support of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT)
September 2022