Nairobi,Kenya:
Airtel has launched a project to empower to 250,000 smallholder farmers in the country.
The Nairobi-based mobile firm is working with the GSM Association to initiate a project to provide approximately 250,000 small-holder farmers in Kenya with reliable and relevant agricultural information via their mobile phones.
“This initiative is a solid testament to what partnerships that harness relevant consumer needs can achieve in overcoming daily challenges. We are excited and thankful to the partners involved in birthing this initiative,” Airtel Kenya CEO Shivan Bhargava said in a statement issued in Nairobi.
Last year, Kenya’s food prices rose to an alarming rate and place many people’s food security at a risk. Today majority of families still struggle to put food on the table. Kenya is currently implementing the Agriculture Sector Development Strategy (ASDS) which envisages a food secure and prosperous nation by 2020.
Two pillars of that strategy are to reduce the number of food insecure people by 30 percent, and to reduce the numbers of people living below the poverty line to less than 25 percent. Under vision 2030, Kenya plans to have a fertilizer manufacturing plant to help reduce costs to the farmers who rely on the expensive imported fertilizer.
The innovative project, dubbed “Sauti ya Mkulima” (Swahili for voice of the farmer), aims to provide farmers with access to pertinent agriculture-related information, advice and research that will help them make better decisions about their crops, increasing the productivity of their yield, as well as their potential income.
It will also help create a farmer community within which peers can share experiences and exchange information about social gatherings, events, and job opportunities. The project will focus on small-holder Kenyan farmers engaged in maize, banana, mango, rice, beans and horticulture (tomato and black night shade) crops. Information on more crops will be added on a quarterly basis.
Airtel plans to further develop the model and eventually replicate it across all its markets on the continent. Bhargava said the project will provide small-holder farmers with access to quality content, information and know-how on agriculture-related activities.
“Gaining access to this information will be immensely beneficial to the farmers whose livelihoods are dependent on their yield. The information will allow them to make better informed decisions that will result in improved productivity,” he said.
Agriculture in the East African nation is the mainstay of its economy, and despite this it mainly comprises of subsistence farming which still poses the challenge of feeding the entire nation. The impact of unpredictable weather, rainfall patterns, floods and drought further exacerbate the constraints within the sector.
Officials said it was sad to note that farmers are still struggling with rudimentary agricultural farming methods, resulting in low yields coupled with huge post harvest losses.
Farmers incur losses, both in qualitative and quantitative terms due to improper post harvest handling, lack of up to date market information to make informed decisions and poor storage facilities. In addition, most farmers are not using up to date technology to enhance productivity and improve product handling and storage.
Under the partnership, the GSMA mFarmer initiative aims to facilitate the rapid scaling of the use of mobile phone networks to provide farmers in developing countries with agricultural information.
The funds will be used to develop a reliable database of content with the help of partners such as the Center for Agricultural Bioscience International (CABI), an inter- governmental not-for-profit organization and radio-based information provider Kilimo Media, as well as to set up the technological capabilities to execute the project with the help of world-class technology service providers. (Xinhua)
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