MAgriculture among small holder farmers in Kenya: Challenges and lessons

Abstract

The number of mAgriculture apps have steadily increased over the last 10 years in Kenya. The availability of mobile technology among a large portion of the population has created an opportunity to deploy mobile-based services among small holder farmers. These platforms have been deployed in different areas of the country targeting small holder farmers practicing various forms of agriculture including crop and livestock farming. These services range from agriculture advisory information, record keeping, diagnosis services, market information and veterinary services among others. These services are availed on a range of mobile devices including basic phones, feature phones, smart phones and other hand-held computing devices. Different technologies have been used to develop these innovations such as SMS, USSD, IVR, mobile web and downloadable apps. We set out to establish the uptake and use of mAgriculture among the small holder farmers through FGDs and interviews with small farm holder farmers with a diverse and representative sample. Here we report our findings. We identified the challenges and lessons learnt at different stages of their implementation. It was discovered that only a few of these implementations have been widely adopted, as various challenges have hampered their growth beyond the pilot stage. However, some of the mAgriculture innovations have been successful and offer key lessons that other stakeholders should adopt for similar attempts.