Smart farms

: 21 June 2018; Hits: 9055

Safaricom’s Digifarm opens four farmers’ depots in Meru County

Safaricom in partnership with iProcure, FarmDrive and Arifu have today opened four Digifarm depots in Meru County.

Located in Laare, Nkubu, Mikindori and Meru Town, the four depots will offer quality, affordable inputs to farmers from Meru County. Since October 2017, more than 105,000 farmers from the county have signed up for the Digifarm service and are receiving affordable inputs, financing and advisory services through their phones.

“Digifarm leverages technology to tackle the challenges faced by farmers and to also empower farmers with solutions to grow their businesses. The service is specially tailored to cater to the specific needs of farmers in each of the counties it is available in, providing localised information and discounted inputs, “said Rita Okuthe, Director – Enterprise Business, Safaricom.

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Safaricom Agribusiness product manager Elizabeth Mudogo (left) engages Agriculture Director, Meru County, Martin Munene (right), and Scholastica Musyimi (centre) in a conversation on the new products and services that farmers benefit from on the Digi Farm platform by Safaricom during the DigiFarm depot opening.

Meru farmers will especially benefit from the all-round availability of inputs at the depots, especially during peak season, and access to advisory and technical information from experts stationed at each of the depots.

Digifarm is an agribusiness solution tailored for small-holder farmers, providing them with financing, information on different crops and animals in addition to quality, discounted inputs. Farmers can enrol to and access Digifarm by dialling *283#.

For loan processing, the service relies on a big data model developed by FarmDrive to score farmers for financing, based on historical data on their farms. Previously, farmers have struggled to access adequate financing as formal lenders lack enough information to assess the farmers.

The service also provides farmers with input recommendation specific to their locality, with the recommended inputs accessible at a discount or on credit at a Digifarm depot. Input recommendations are similarly data-driven and are informed by climate, current weather conditions, soil types and soil fertility. The depots are run in partnership with iProcure.

Digifarm now serves more than 670,000 farmers and has opened 18 depots across the country. FarmDrive and iProcure were among five startups that qualified for Safaricom’s one million dollar Spark Fund, which provided early-stage funding to firms innovating around the mobile phone.

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: 20 June 2018; Hits: 10351

Amiran paste magically improves rose flower appeal

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Rose flower farmers in Kenya can now improve the quality of their post-harvest yield by applying TOG paste, a systematic growth regulator marketed by Amiran Kenya Limited, which has the ability to elongate stems and increase the flower head size of cut roses.

The plant growth regulator contains substances like such as auxin, cytokinin, gibberellin and ethylene which play an important role in processes of differentiation, growth, cell elongation and anthocyanin biosynthesis in the plant

Economic benefits

The product, which was recently introduced into the Kenyan market, is likely to increase the attractiveness of Kenya’s roses in the competitive international market, earning farmers more revenues with the economic benefits trickling into the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The cut flower sector earned Kenya Sh54.6billion in 2014, representing 2.8 per cent of the country’s GDP, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

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Application

According to Amiran, the paste is applied on the cut point of the rose beneath the third leaf after harvesting by gently moving the brush width (only 1 cm) uniformly around the flower's stem or on the bud's pedicel. Penetration of the PGR into the plant tissues increases cell dimensions elongates treated stems and increases rose flower head size.

Earlier studies indicate successes

In an efficiency study performed in Israel in 2004, the T.O.G. paste formulation was examined in various application methods. Application of the paste by smearing was found to be most suitable as it did not impair flower or stem quality. In that study, TOG paste was credited for the extension of rose flower stems by 3-8 cm as well as advanced flowering in few days.

Although still in its infancy stage in Kenya, the use of plant growth regulators is extensively used in developed nations like Israel to spur crop production, making them food secure. A 100g tube of TOG paste formation costs Sh4176, and it comes with an application brush.

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: 20 June 2018; Hits: 10727

Kitui County signs deal with South Eastern Kenya University to fatten farmers’ cows

The Kitui County government has signed a deal with South Eastern Kenya University to set up a livestock facility geared towards improving the quality and value of livestock in the region.

The deal which was signed this week will enable farmers submit their livestock to the university for fattening in a bid to fetch higher prices in both the local and international market.

The county has 276,568 heads of cattle representing 1.59 per cent of the total cattle population in the country according to the Kenya Dairy Board.

The project will start immediately and farmers will be trained on technology, animal husbandry, milk production, shoe making and honey production.

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Kitui Governor Charity Ngilu (left) with SEKU Vice Chancellor Prof.Geoffrey Muluvi during the signing of the deal at the Governor's office on Monday. Photo: Charity Ngilu facebook.

Kitui is a semi-arid region with little vegetation mainly comprised of thorny shrubs hence inadequate for livestock feed.

This comes at a time when the number of livestock slaughtered in the country increased in 2017 compared to the previous year according to the 2018 economic survey report.

In this, the number of cattle and calves slaughtered in abattoirs rose by 5.3 per cent from 2,460.2 thousand in 2016 to 2,590.0 thousand in 2017. During the same period, the total number of goats and sheep slaughtered increased by 12 per cent to stand at 9,206.7 thousand.

The number of pigs slaughtered increased for the third consecutive year, to 360.1 thousand in 2017. The increase in the number of livestock slaughtered was attributable to the increased livestock off take occasioned by drought experienced during the period under review to cushion livestock keepers from losses.

However, the quantity of milk delivered to dairy processors recorded a significant drop of 17.4 per cent from 648.2m liters in 2016 to 535.7m liters in 2017.

Similarly, the quantity of processed milk and cream from processing plants decreased by 8.5 per cent and that of butter and ghee declined by 22.0 per cent

Production of cheese however, increased from 311.2 tonnes in 2016 to 338.3 tonnes in 2017.

Last year, more than 6,000 farmers in the same county also benefitted from free green grams donated by the County government in collaboration with the Kenya Red Cross.

The Sh100m programme dubbed ‘Ndengu Revolution’ is meant to end food insecurity in the County that has been grappling with pangs of hunger for a long period of time. It is also aimed at improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and reduce poverty by spurring rural development.

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