Leveraging Mobile Phones in Crop Pests and Disease Surveillance - Perspectives of Farmers in Kenya

Abstract

Agriculture plays a crucial role in ensuring food security and employment in Kenya. However, farmers in the country have been struggling with low crop yields due to pests and diseases. To address this issue, mobile-based digital surveillance technologies have been recommended as potential solution. However, these technologies have not been widely adopted by farmers, prompting this study to investigate the reasons behind this and propose strategies to improve their uptake. This paper reports on the farmers perspectives in Homa Bay County, Kenya on the adoption of mobile phone based digital tools in crop pest and disease surveillance. The study employed quantitative approach, involving surveys with 326 selected farmers. The study identified several factors contributing to the low adoption, including lack of training and capacity building, limited technical support to the farmers, limited access to necessary infrastructure, and neglect of co-creation of these solutions with the farmers. Given these findings, it follows that these solutions are intentionally designed to be farmer-centric, and handholding provided to the farmers on use of these technologies including providing farmer training and capacity building.