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Recognising how digital agriculture is driving growth and modernising farming in many parts of the world, and attracting the youth into a sector dominated by an aging population, Makueni County in eastern Kenya is moving fast to embrace the technology. The move will greatly benefit smallholder farmers, improve food and nutrition security, build climate resilience and expand inclusion of youth and women in agriculture.
According to Nzioki King’ola, Makueni County Executive Committee Member for Agriculture, traditional farming cannot guarantee and sustain the demand for food, nutrition and even changing consumer taste for the ever growing population. ‘It is time that the agriculture sector embraced modern digital agricultural technology especially at this time when the sector is suffering from vagaries of climate change.’
For a start, the County is developing an electronic based extension service (e-extension). It has already trained 240 community extension volunteers (CEVs) to digitally register farmers. ‘We have purchased smart phones that are being programmed ahead of the commencement of the exercise. We will use over 400 officers in collecting data from the farmers who include CEVs,’ revealed King’ola adding, ‘There is nothing good we can do without extension services in the agriculture sector.’
King’ola made the revelations when he officially opened a three-day capacity building workshop for agricultural extension service providers from Kitui, Makueni and Taita Taveta counties that was held from 25 – 27 January 2022 at the Makueni Agricultural Training Centre. The Workshop on Climate Risk Assessment and Improved Agricultural Practices for Drought Tolerant Crops was organised by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid (ICRISAT). It was jointly supported by the USAID/Feed the Future funded Accelerated Institutional and Food Systems Development (AIFSD) program, and the World Bank funded Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project.
The aim of the workshop was to: Enhance capacity of participants to disseminate extension information on improved agricultural practices, post-harvest handling, and climate information systems to improve farmer's yields; introduce digital platforms for providing accurate and timely extension information; and enable the extension service providers to enhance farmers adoption of proven technologies, management practices, post-harvest handling and weather advisories. It was attended by over 80 participants.
Digital innovations to attract youth in agriculture
In his virtual address to the participants, Dr Romano Kiome, AIFSD Chief of Party emphasised the importance of applying digital innovations in agriculture for they are critical tools in turning the sector into a source of livelihood with expanded employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for farming communities, and especially so, for the youth. This is important considering that the current farming communities are relatively old, less familiar with new innovations, making it difficult for them to apply modern digital technologies in agriculture.
‘Ageing and less education are key impediments derailing farmers to use the current digital technologies. It is therefore critical that the youth who are techno savvy are involved in the new technology application as this will entice them to have interest in agriculture. However, owing to slow adoption of agriculture by the young people, developers and purveyors of new digital technologies need to ensure their use is simple in order to make is easy for the old people,’ stated Kiome.
Ganga Rao, product placement lead-grain legumes and dryland cereals & legumes breeder, ICRISAT noted that AIFSD will strengthen the seed systems, and leverage on digital platforms to reach as many farmers as possible through e-extension advisories. ‘We will target the youth for the adoption of digital farming, hoping that they can impress upon their parents to also embrace digital technologies in their farming.
Ganga, who is also AIFSD’s drought tolerant crop value chain manager stated that for the next 3 years AIFSD will work with county government of Makueni Taita Taveta and Kitui to mainstream use of digital platforms for farmer registration, e-extension for timely dissemination of advisories on GAP, markets and nutrition, and access and use of elite climate smart drought tolerant crop varieties to enhance farmers yields. Working with extension staff, nutrition and meteorological department the project will be sending to farmers within the project sites short messages to advice on different aspects.
Satish Nagaraji, Senior Manager in-charge of Digital Agriculture at ICRISAT said the introduction of digital platform for e-extension is crucial in enabling farmers access more information on farming including good agronomic practices, disease and pest control, prices and availability of commodities and in which places the produce are as well as strengthen market linkages.
Ram Dhulipala, Theme Leader, Digital Agriculture & Youth, ICRISAT, shared their progress in developing an ICT platform - AgData Hub and Weather Analytics Dashboard, a national level agriculture data hub and digital climate analytics resources to support climate information services. AICCRA and AIFSD are supporting the development of the AgData Hub whose overarching goal is to create a data ecosystem to support blending of climate science and agriculture through technology and partnerships. When operational it will be anchored and owned by national agencies and used mainly Ag Techs, Agri businesses, and players along the agricultural value chain who will be able to access the sought for information through SMS, IVR, mobile apps, agribusiness and agritech websites among others.