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: 04 May 2018; Hits: 11259

Kenya faces wheat shortage as farmers abandon the crop

Kenya’s wheat production decreased by 23.1 per cent from 214.7 thousand tonnes recorded in 2016 to 165.2 thousand tonnes in 2017 according to the 2018 economic survey report released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics in April this year.

Wheat imports into the country increased by 36.2 per in 2017 from 1362.3 thousand tonnes in 2016 in order to curb the shortage of the produce that is used to make bread, cakes, and other baked foods.

According to KNBS, Kenyans consume an estimated one million tonnes of wheat annually hence the country faces a deficit of more than 750,000 tonnes.

The crop is the second most important cereal rain after maize in the country.

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Wheat is mainly grown in Nakuru, Uasin Gishu, Narok, Meru, Nyandarua, Trans Nzoia, Laikipia, and Elgeyo Marakwet counties.

A Narok County farmer Geoffrey Rono for instance has abandoned wheat for hay production after losing six million shillings on his 48 acre farm due to poor records.

The farmer was forced to sell his tractor at Sh1.5m to enable him start afresh by venturing into hay and greenhouse farming.

The farmer is now earning roughly Sh2.8m from hay sales and a further Sh3.2m from his greenhouse where he has planted tomatoes.

wheat field

A farmer in a wheat field

Some other farmers have dumped wheat for pepper cultivation at a time when horticulture has been ranked as the fastest growing sub-sector in the agriculture industry.

Rupa Fruits and Vegetables Farm in Uasin Gishu are now dealing in two chilli varieties (tabiche and Carolina cayenne) with the farm manager Wilson Cheruiyot crediting the shift to the crop’s fast maturing and high earnings of up to Sh350 per kilo.

”We started this farm in 2016 as we were tired of maize farming because of long queues at the National and Cereals Board depot in Eldoret, year in year out and high costs of maize and wheat production which are at Sh50,000 per acre against net profit of only Sh10,000 yet we wait for the whole year to harvest maize,” said Cheruiyot.

In the County, hitherto considered Kenya’s bread basket, wheat production dropped from 466,000 bags in 2016 to 430,000 bags in 2017 due to prolonged drought and reduction in acreage of land under wheat.

Maize production in the county also declined from 4.4m bags in 2016 to 3.7m bags in 2017 attributed to fall army worm invasion, maize smut disease and the maize lethal necrosis disease.

“The drop in production of the two crops will significantly affect poor households on both the rural and urban areas who depend on the produce for food and income,” said Jacob Tanui, an agricultural agronomist based in Eldoret town.

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: 02 May 2018; Hits: 7701

Affordable internet enabling farmers improve food production

Artificial intelligence is revolutionising agriculture

By Adil El Youssefi, CEO Liquid Telecom Kenya

Adil El Youseffi CEO Liquid Telecom Kenya

Adil El Youssefi, CEO Liquid Telecom Kenya. Photo: Courtesy

Artificial intelligence offers the promise of transforming agriculture in ways that could save over 815 million people, or 11 per cent of the world’s population, from hunger: most especially in Africa, where the sector accounts for 32 per cent of GDP and two-thirds of employment.

As at now, three-quarters of Africa’s farmers practice traditional farming techniques that deliver low yields, despite agriculture being their main source of livelihood.

But, to illustrate the change that is possible, app developers, such as Kenyan botanist and biochemist, Samuel Kamya, are delivering new solutions that could lift the continent’s agricultural output. Kamya’s app, Eska, detects crop diseases and deficiencies in soils of vital nutrients such as phosphorus. The app enables Kenyan farmers to send photos of their crops using a smartphone's back camera and, instantaneously, diagnosing the health of the crop and any issues with pests or diseases and displays the results on their phone’s screen.

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This is just one of the many new ways in which software and smartphones are being used to apply artificial intelligence in overcoming pest infestation, attacks by diseases, and nutrient deficiencies, in order to increase farm production.

Farmers are also, increasingly, using sensors and soil samples to gather data. This data is then stored in on-farm management systems that allow for better processing and analysis.

AI is now helping with supply chain tracking and market positioning.

Typical has been a coffee traceability solution that has been launched in Ethiopia, based on mobile technology, analytics and the Internet of Things. The solution is now tracking as many as five million bags of coffee through all stages of the supply chain, helping firms achieve fair trade and organic certification for their products.

The system has been a major boost for the coffee industry in Ethiopia, enabling farmers to better compete in the international coffee market and lifting Ethiopian coffee exports.

AI is also set to reduce the high levels of repetitive and physical work that drain resources and that have deterred many in the younger generation from farming in Africa.

In this, drones are now being used ever more widely to collect farming data, which has been found to be 93% accurate, yet the drones can collect the same amount of data in 10 minutes that it previously took farmers 8 hours to collect on foot.

This data collection is leading directly to higher outputs. Typical is the Aeroview platform developed by South African company Aerobatics, using AI, satellites and drones. The platform uses drone imagery to map regions and individual crop rows of stressed plants, from which the system’s analytics identify problem areas.

The platform is being used by farmers in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, as well as South Africa, and recently enabled sugar farmers in South Africa to detect crop problems early enough to prevent up to 20% of crop failures.

The possibility that lies ahead is for machines that solve problems through physical interactions within an environment. Although such machines are yet to arrive in African agriculture in a big way, they offer the hope of vastly improved soil management and better coping strategies in the face of droughts.

Agriculture in Kenya and other sub-Saharan countries is also faced with multiple challenges in accessing infrastructure and markets, as well as in storage facilities, marketing, and even in access to information that drives better practices and choices of inputs.

In this, stakeholders across the public and private sector, including Liquid Telecom, have been providing support to tech start-ups and agricultural organisations to further promote agricultural success.

An example is Liquid Telecom’s high-speed connection across Kenya’s agricultural research institute KALRO, which has allowed it to develop and use new applications and software to accelerate research results and deliver information directly to farmers.

In this, Kenya’s advancement in technology, high smartphone penetration, and widespread internet access are laying the framework for rapid progress in agricultural ICT and AI.

Progressively, the options to run sensors and IoT devices are expanding with the growth of low power Wide Area Networks which consume much less power than traditional GSM SIM card based communications.

The recent partnership by Liquid Telecom Kenya and the Strathmore University Business School to launch a new data analytics centre focused on data-driven research and practices for African businesses adds another precursor to the much greater use of AI in agriculture.

The prospect is for early detection of withering crops that automatically triggers irrigation systems, of reduced labour and transport costs as drones, take over and sustain a conducive environment, and additional monitoring of the use of farming chemicals, optimising input costs.

In understanding the potential impact of all these technologies, examples are beginning to abound. When Nature Sweet in the US adopted AI to monitor its tomatoes, it increased its harvest by four per cent in the very first harvest.

For Africa, artificial intelligence offers the hope of multiple food security solutions and a more productive sector continent-wide.

END

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: 25 April 2018; Hits: 8926

Brookside records 30 per cent increase in farmers’ milk supply

collecting of milk Weigh of milk at a collection centre. Milk production and supply by farmers to milk factories has increased due to ongoing rains across the country that has resulted to more pasture grass for livestock. Photo: ILRI/Dave Elsworth.

Brookside Dairy has for the past one week recorded an increase of 30 per cent in milk supply to the processor by its 160,000 contracted farmers across the country. This is against Kenya Dairy Board (KBD) Milk Production and Marketing in Kenya 2013 report which listed low raw milk delivery at factory gates as one of the challenges facing dairy sector in Kenya.

The increase has come barely a week after the Ruiru-based company announced an increase of 42 per cent in farm-gate prices of milk bought from its collective centres in key production regions across the country.

“Our price increase from Sh26 per kilo of raw milk to Sh37 has spurred the production and delivery of the produce by our farmers,” said John Gethi, the firm’s milk procurement director.

“We would like our farmers to adopt climate-smart practices such as establishment of fodder plots on their farms with the current rains, that I why we increased their earnings per kilo of milk they deliver to us as a way of supporting them financially.”

The milk price increase was against the industry trend where during rainy season there could be a drop in raw milk price supplied to milk processors due to increase in pasture grass production translating to more feeds for livestock and more milk production and supply leading to milk glut.

The company is now embanking on fodder trees planting having donated seedlings to it farmers to plant this rainy season increasing fodder production that will ensure enough feeds for their cows for steady milk production and supply even after the rains.

“We are looking forward to a situation where the country will have optimum supplies of milk across all seasons due to abundance of conserved animal feed,” said Gethi.

This is a relief for smallholder dairy farmers who are producing over 90 per cent of the national milk against the less 10 per cent of national milk production by large scale dairy farmers who can afford sustainable fodder production.

According to Gethi, fodder trees are easy to grow as they need little land, labour or capital and have numerous by-products and often has a year round supply of animal feed.

The Kenya dairy sector plays a critical role in the livelihood of many Kenyans and contributes 4.5 per cent of total country’s gross domestic product (GDP), making Kenya one of the largest producers of milk in Africa, according to KDB.

A survey conducted by Smallholder Dairy Project (SDP) claims that there are approximately 6.7 million dairy cattle in Kenya while Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates the population of milking animals to be 5.5 million.

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