Farmer-to-farmer digital network as a strategy to strengthen agricultural performance in Kenya: A research note on ‘Wefarm’ platform

Abstract

The potential to utitilize mobile phone innovations in providing customized agricultural information and services to improve smallholder farmers’ performance in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains largely untapped. This is at the backdrop of the increasing emergence and adoption of ICT services as a means of relaying agricultural information to small-scale farmers and extension workers. One such technology is ‘Wefarm’ in Kenya, an SMS-based knowledge-sharing platform that enables farmers to connect with their peers and exchange knowledge about their production systems. Even though targeted to improve farmers’ access to information related to agricultural production, marketing and financial services, the extent to which these goals are achieved has not been evaluated. A pathway to improve technology adoption is by proving that the technology can enable farmers to attain their livelihood objectives. This short research note, therefore, identifies critical knowledge gaps for which evidence is required to inform policy and practice to enable stakeholders to harness the potential of ICT based innovations offered for agricultural development in SSA.