Posted on February, 10, 2025 at 10:29 am
About 20,000 livestock farmers from Nakuru County will profit from an ICT innovations’ programme geared towards enhancing their connectivity and access to accurate and timely information that will impact value chain efficiency, productivity, and income.
According to County Secretary and Head of Public Service Dr. Samuel Mwaura, the programme is a partnership between the devolved unit’s administration, Enigma Four LTD, and VetNow Kenya Limited and aims at training the farmers on various mobile and web apps targeting agricultural-oriented advisory and information services, market linkages, financial access, and supply chain management, among others.
Dr. Mwaura said the venture was informed by the growing need among Kenyan farmers to use and implement ICT solutions in order to create linkages with existing and potential markets that would offer good prices for their produce while reducing post-harvest losses.
The County Secretary observed that although ICT was not well developed in the country’s agricultural sector, it should be embraced as it was the driving force, not only in farming but also in other related sectors such as agricultural industrialisation.
“Enigma Four LTD will provide Agritech solutions designed to modernise agricultural data management within Nakuru County. It will streamline data capture during farmer interactions, facilitate real-time data synchronisation, and provide actionable insights to extension officers, county agricultural departments, and other agricultural stakeholders for informed decision-making,” Dr. Mwaura pointed out.
“This will enhance efficiency in data collection, real-time reporting, improved disease surveillance, extension services, and greater adoption of sustainable agricultural practices,” he added.
Dr. Mwaura mentioned that the VetNow platform would provide remote veterinary care to farmers through consultations, disease recognition, treatment initiations, and disease surveillance.
He said this would enable timely response to the frequent disease outbreaks and help improve herd health and reduce disease-related productivity losses.
He expressed optimism that the partnership would enhance the economic well-being of smallholder farmers through innovative technology to help increase productivity and help the county to make data-informed decisions in matters of agricultural development in the county.
While acknowledging the existence of hundreds of digital platforms and applications technologies aimed at improving productivity and boosting climate-smart agriculture, Dr. Mwaura regretted that most farmers had no access to such information; hence, there was a need to explore ways to share the knowledge in an easy and user-friendly way.
He said of the 8.6 million farmers in Kenya, 81 per cent are smallholder farmers who have less than 3 acres of land and who could benefit greatly from ICT-driven applications and knowledge to improve their farming practices.
County Executive Committee Member in charge of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Livestock Mr. Leonard Bor noted that farmers could access firsthand information on best farming practices from agricultural experts at Nakuru Farmers Call Centre via Short Message Service (SMS), WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and calls, complementing the work of agricultural extension officers in the area.
“Food security can only be attained if farmers are equipped with the necessary knowledge,” said Bor.
He said farmers making use of such applications have an easier time accessing their farms’ information and records regardless of their location away from their farms.
Marketing of produce, which he mentions as the task in which it is intensively employed, is also made a lot easier through ICT-driven trading platforms.
Bor said increased adoption of ICT was now drawing youth to farming and agricultural practices while providing them with access to market information, pest and disease control practices, production techniques, new technologies, and financing opportunities.
He expressed regret that existing setbacks in farming, such as poor agricultural practices, low-quality inputs, and lack of access to knowledge, credits, and markets, were being worsened by new challenges such as climate change, emerging pests and new disease patterns, and shifting demographics.
He said in addressing these challenges, a transformation in agriculture was needed in which data that could lead to better, more timely, and more actionable knowledge would play a major role.
“By embracing a combination of mobile and web services, farmers’ access to extension services and market information improves. This reduces the costs of searching for market information and provides real-time weather and extension advice to farmers to make informed decisions,” said Bor.
Enigma Four limited Chief Executive Officer Mr. Brian Oyugi said that the innovative data exchange platform is designed to revolutionize the agricultural sector’s collaboration and innovation as it empowers organisations across the agricultural landscape to seamlessly share, integrate, and leverage valuable data for the greater good.
Oyugi assured that the platform will have a chatbox where farmers could ask questions and get prompt responses addressing their challenges, which are region- and ward-specific, and this would address the challenge of extension services.
The CEO said that in Kenya Vision 2030, which stipulates a framework and policy direction towards achieving “a food-secure and prosperous nation,” the agricultural sector is expected to be a key pillar for delivering the 10 per cent annual economic growth envisaged under the economic pillar of Vision 2030.
“Data and digital solutions play an important enabling role in this transformation and should support the sector to achieve its primary objectives to increase small-scale farmer, pastoralist, and fisherfolk incomes for approximately 3.3 million households and impact about 15 million Kenyans; increase food availability year-round by unlocking over 500,000 acres of agricultural production and agro-processing across priority value chains; boost household food resilience; and reduce the number of food-insecure Kenyans to zero,” said Oyugi.
He said that information and communications technologies (ICTs) have become a powerful tool for farmers to access and organise the available knowledge in agriculture.
“In the region, Kenya takes the lead in using ICT in agriculture and has more digital-for-agriculture (D4Ag) enterprises and users. I acknowledge that digitalisation in the food and agriculture sectors has enabled the provision of essential services across all the value-chain actors in the agriculture sector,” said Oyugi.
VetNow Kenya Limited Vice President of Operations and Engagement, Kenya, Dr. Alexis Kiers, explained that while the sector may experience challenges such as pests, diseases, and unpredictable weather conditions, which are now worsened by climate change, the integration of ICT innovations, technologies, and data will play a significant role in enabling better, timely, and actionable knowledge.
“Through ICTs, we can significantly increase the speed of receiving and distributing data, updates, and information in relation to weather situations,” he said.
Dr. Kiers said that the provision of agricultural extension services in Kenya plays a critical role in the agricultural sector and that there is still a challenge due to resource constraints and a very low ratio of extension officers per farmer, among other challenges.
“With the use of ICTs, e-extension services can be availed to nearly the entire population of farmers in Kenya without the need for a huge pool of extension officers,” he said.
Dr. Kiers said the fact that most farmers in developing countries have mobile phones is an opportunity to provide mobile-based extension services that address key issues faced by the farmers and other agricultural value chain actors.
“In a country like Kenya, where mobile penetration is nearly 90 per cent, the government and the private sector can provide excellent platforms for extension services that reach a greater part of the population. This has been proven to be impossible with the face-to-face visits that characterise the traditional provision of extension services,” said the official.
He explained that multiple technologies, such as SMS, voice, installable applications, and the web, could be combined in order to accommodate farmers with a diverse range of mobile devices.
He said that they were working towards assisting the extension services challenge in the country, where the ratio is one extension officer serving approximately 100,000 people.
The agricultural sector in Kenya has undergone a massive transformation with the use of new digital tools and devices.
Dr. Kier observed that the way farmers grow crops or tend their livestock and how they end up with the final consumer is now shaped by dramatic digital evolvement.
He noted that with the use of information and communication technology, farming is changing for the better, hence improving food security and foreign exchange in our economy.
He stated that ICT has also made it easier for farmers to monitor their livestock and respond to threats such as diseases or pests while using fewer resources.
County Agriculture Chief Officer Mr. Newton Mwaura noted that from data analytics to the use of drones, ICT is revolutionising agriculture with improved productivity, thereby translating into increased earnings for farmers across the country.
“The use of technology in e-agriculture is accelerating agricultural development by adapting innovative means to improve existing information and communication processes,” Mwaura emphasized.
He said that information about market prices for agricultural commodities, agricultural machinery, climate, value addition, and early warning systems can now be disseminated through such online outlets.
According to him, digitalisation, the use of mobile technology and social media, is reshaping many sectors, including agriculture.
He also mentioned the emerging use of Artificial Intelligence that has made it possible to recognise trends and undertake predictive analysis in modern farming and many other sectors.
To be competitive and profitable, advised the official, modern-day agribusiness operations increasingly require investments in technology, knowledge, and skills.
Source: KNA