The potential of information technology (IT) is assessed broadly under two heads: (a) as a tool for direct contribution to agricultural productivity and (b) as an indirect tool for empowering farmers to make informed and quality decisions that will have a positive impact on the way agriculture and allied activities are conducted.
Precision farming uses IT to contribute to agricultural productivity directly. The techniques of remote sensing using satellite technologies, geographical information systems, agronomy, and soil sciences increase agricultural output.
The indirect benefits of IT in empowering the Kenyan smallholder farmers are significant and remain to be exploited. The Kenyan smallholder farmer urgently requires timely and reliable sources of information inputs for making decisions.
For this reason, KENAFF has heightened her efforts to bring about an overall qualitative improvement in the lives of farmers of Kenya by providing timely and quality information inputs for decision making.
KENAFF has heightened her efforts to bring about an overall qualitative improvement in the lives of farmers of Kenya by providing timely and quality information inputs for decision making.
The KENAFF USSD Code platform is a mobile phone- based information service that offers farmers relevant information on best agricultural practices to make high quality decisions.
To access this information, a farmer must register with the platform by dialing *501#. Information from the platform is shared in two ways: (i) upon user request (ii) user receiving four push messages per week on weather predictions, market prices, and Covid-19 updates.
In collaboration with Andreas Hermes Akademie (AHA) and the Young Farmers’ Federation of Uganda (UNYFA), KENAFF is developing an online farmers video library where farmers can access information on best agricultural practices from different countries across the world.
This library will consist of videos on agricultural topics. The videos will be collected from different online sources like access agriculture, summarized in text, and sequenced. With this, the users can consume the information easily without necessarily watching the videos since they can read the texts or listen to the audio files provided by the website. This will allow them to save on time and money spent on data.
Accessing Information
Accessing this information means one will be required to visit the KENAFF website, from where they will be directed to the kenaff.fo- library.org website, where they will be exposed to a library of videos. Information on the website is classified into different categories:
How to use the video library platform
Information on the video library platform is accessed in the following ways:
✦ Search for videos by entering your topic of interest in the text box area or by using keywords, e.g., birds, weeds, etc.
✦ Select a video of your interest from the menu provided.
✦ Post a comment after viewing the video.
We believe that these two platforms- the KENAFF USSD Code and the KENAFF FO Video Library, reflect the efforts we are making as a federation in offering relevant, useful decision support tools to the farmers of Kenya and our contribution in finding the answer to the biggest problem of all – food insecurity.