Kenya: Appy Agriculture

John Mwangi stands in his wooden shed counting bags of maize neatly bundled in burlap.

The 90kg bags sit on slats raised two feet off the earthen floor, protecting the maize from damp and rodents. A few hens scratch the earth, pecking at the grains that have fallen out.

The 44-year-old farmer finishes counting at 149 and takes out his cellphone. He enters the number into a message and hits the send button.

A few seconds later, he receives a text message with the latest price of maize in Nairobi. He puts the phone back in his overall pocket, content that he knows how much he will earn from these bags of maize.

Mr Mwangi is one of 6,400 farmers in Kenya taking advantage of this new high-tech service, powered by M-Farm, according to Jimmy Wambua, an M-Farm spokesman.

Three young software developers in their early to mid-twenties started the company in 2011 to provide market prices to farmers.

Previously, Mr Mwangi sold his maize to brokers that arrived with trucks and dictated the maize price. He had no way of finding out the actual market price and often felt cheated. Now, not only does he know how much he can demand but he is able to come together with other farmers and command higher prices.

M-Farm is one of many services that have been developed in the last five years on the back of Kenya’s lead in information and communications technology (ICT), particularly mobile phones.

An increasing number of young Kenyans are developing software, apps and cellphone-based programmes to help small-scale farmers increase their agricultural skills and yields.

At the most recent PivotEast, East Africa’s premier mobile start-ups competition and conference, held in June 2012, three out of five finalists were young entrepreneurs who had created agrarian apps.

Agriculture is the backbone of Kenya’s economy, earning over 24.2% of the country’s $33 billion GDP and employing 75% of the country’s workforce.

Farmers, mostly working on smallholdings of less than five acres, produce the bulk of Kenya’s cash and food crops such as tea and coffee, the country’s largest agricultural exports, and maize, Kenya’s staple. While their production is quite considerable, Kenya’s rural areas remain the country’s poorest.

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