Kenyan farmers tap apps to ride out COVID-19 and climate storm


Digital companies have gotten essential to serving to small-scale farmers climate monetary losses and adapt to local weather shifts – however consultants say the tech migration is leaving many behind

* Africa’s digital farming companies rising practically 45% per yr

* Sub-Saharan Africa has greater than 400 farming apps and platforms

* Farmers use apps to purchase items, entry loans, attain clients

By Wesley Langat

KOIYET VILLAGE, Kenya, June 30 (Thomson Reuters Basis) – Over the previous yr, Wilson Lang’at has made a gentle revenue from his farm in Koiyet village, managing to get the seeds and fertiliser he wants, planning forward for droughts and floods, and borrowing cash to diversify his crops – all by way of his cellphone.

His expertise shouldn’t be the norm, as most farmers throughout Kenya have struggled with the double hit of utmost climate shrinking their yields and coronavirus lockdowns and curfews choking off access to provides and demand for his or her produce.

Till two years in the past, the 46-year-old father of six traded cows whereas rising maize on the facet at his 6-acre (2.5-hectare) farm in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Then he began utilizing the DigiFarm app to entry farming inputs, climate experiences and financing.

Lang’at mentioned he went from producing six 90-kg (200-pound) luggage of maize per acre to about 20 luggage per acre, in addition to beans, potatoes and tomatoes – and shortly earned sufficient that he may drop the bovine arm of his enterprise.

“Because the begin of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve by no means stopped farming. Farming has change into extra worthwhile (than cows), and now it is my full-time job,” he mentioned.

In Africa, consultants say agricultural know-how – or agri-tech – like DigiFarm is more and more taking part in a vital function in cushioning small-scale farmers in opposition to the crop-damaging results of local weather change and the financial ache of the pandemic.

In line with authorities figures, there are about 4.5 million small-scale farmers in Kenya and their collective output accounts for greater than 60% of the nation’s meals.

DigiFarm, a free service from telecoms big Safaricom, was launched in 2017 – however the bulk of its present 1.4 million customers signed up after the pandemic hit, mentioned Elizabeth Mudogo, buyer expertise lead at DigiFarm.

Daniel Langat, a DigiFarm village advisor in Bomet County, the place Koiyet is situated, mentioned the app saves farmers money and time.

After ordering by way of the app, farmers get SMS notifications when their items are prepared for assortment at a neighborhood depot – the corporate has practically 30 in Bomet alone – they usually can get retailer credit score and reductions, Langat mentioned.

DigiFarm additionally helps farmers put together for extra erratic climate patterns by sending them info on greatest practices and tricks to cut back crop loss, together with historic climate experiences and forecasts.

“This app has introduced farmers collectively in our space,” Langat mentioned. “As all of the farmers plant on the similar time since they get climate updates on the similar time, this helps in illness management and decision-making.”

In case farmers do nonetheless undergo surprising crop losses, DigiFarm provides insurance coverage and loans by way of fashionable cellular cash platform M-Pesa.

In the course of the pandemic, Lang’at, the farmer, borrowed 1,300 Kenyan shillings ($12) by way of the app to purchase tomato seeds.

He earned greater than 50 occasions that promoting the produce, which allowed him to pay one in all his kids’s school charges.

“Planning is less complicated. (For instance) once I obtain updates of low rainfall, I plant beans, which do properly with shorter rains,” he mentioned.

TURNING TO TECH

An April report from the Netherlands-based Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation mentioned Africa’s digital agricultural companies sector has grown nearly 45% yearly by way of farmers reached over the past three years.

Because the begin of the coronavirus pandemic, Kenyan firm Twiga Meals has seen a soar within the variety of farmers utilizing its digital platform Soko Yetu (Our Market) to succeed in clients with out going by way of costly brokers, mentioned chief know-how officer Caine Wanjau.

Twiga, which launched in 2014, harvests and buys produce from its member farms, then takes the products to assortment centres for processing and packaging, he defined.

When distributors order one thing by way of the app, the corporate delivers it on to their shops.

Initially working solely in Nairobi, the platform expanded to 5 different main cities in Kenya through the pandemic and just lately introduced a brand new enlargement into Uganda, Wanjau mentioned.

The app now covers greater than 17,000 farmers and 35,000 distributors, he famous.

Ann Waithera signed as much as Twiga a yr in the past to assist her maintain working her basic retailer on the outskirts of Nairobi.

As an alternative of going to markets to purchase items, she locations her order from house and it’s delivered the next morning.

“These days, the market is on my cellphone. I save over 500 shillings (every single day) which might have been used for transport,” she mentioned. “And I now not get up at 4 a.m. to go to the market in Nairobi, so now I will be with my children.”

LOW-INCOME FARMERS

A January report by consultancy McKinsey & Firm mentioned farmers throughout sub-Saharan Africa are utilizing more than 400 apps and digital platforms for all the pieces from accessing monetary companies and planting recommendation to supply-chain administration.

However, it famous, uptake of those apps is restricted by tech challenges comparable to lack of web entry for farmers, with 3G networks overlaying solely about 40% of sub-Saharan Africa’s rural areas, whereas half of the area has no grid electrical energy.

Nonetheless, David J. Spielman, senior researcher on the Washington-based Worldwide Meals Coverage Analysis Institute, mentioned agri-tech apps are already serving to build the climate resilience of small-scale farmers.

“Crop and livestock yields and manufacturing are edging upwards in Africa – the bigger situation is that this charge of development has to extend,” he mentioned by electronic mail.

To do this, he urged builders to focus extra on instruments for poorer and different marginalised communities, in order that platforms can handle their particular wants.

For instance, some applied sciences present climate info when the actual constraint going through farmers in a specific space could be entry to credit score and finance.

“There may be vital potential development of digital innovation throughout the area if builders and suppliers can determine methods to genuinely goal and profit individuals in low-income teams,” Spielman mentioned.

($1 = 107.7000 Kenyan shillings)

Learn extra:

OPINION: African agriculture is ready for a digital revolution

Guess the rain: Kenya gamifies climate change to help farmers

Armed with phones and seeds, jobless Kenyans tackle illegal logging

(Reporting by Wesley Langat, Modifying by Jumana Farouky and Megan Rowling. Please credit score the Thomson Reuters Basis, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of individuals all over the world who wrestle to reside freely or pretty. Go to http://information.belief.org)

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.



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