Even in agriculture families rock!

Building better breeds the community way in Ethiopia

Livestock is considered one of the main contributors to the GDP of African countries and as such their health and productivity are of great importance.

Livestock farmers are constantly looking for higher quality breeds whose increased productivity equals greater financial returns.

While crop farmers are more open to higher yielding varieties introduced by research institutions, animal keepers are less accommodative to such ‘lab breeds’.

More often than not farmers tend to borrow from one another the fattened bull or ram for a week in order to service their females

It is no wonder that the community based breeding programs introduced in some rural communities in Ethiopia have begun yielding tremendous results.

Picture courtesy Charlie Pye-Smith/ILRI

The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), and partners from the National Agricultural Research System are implementing breeding programs in Bonga, Horro and Menz with three different sheep breeds.

The project is aimed at improving the productivity of the sheep and increasing the incomes for the 360 households.

Initially the superior variety of rams  were identified  from among the  farmers  and which could be  exchanged in order  to breed  more value  animals.

The animals identified by local community members are then exchanged by farmers within a cooperative based on an agreed upon model.

The committee checks at the conformation, color, horn type, tail type and other criteria in decision making.

 If a farmer with a prized ram wishes the cooperative is at liberty to purchase it in order to continue sharing the valued traits.

More  details of  the project can be gotten here or download the breeding productivity report

Here's to financing Kenyan farmers!

Four fourth-year University of Nairobi students pursuing Computer Science have embarked on linking farmers with financiers.

While there has been a vigorous campaign in the last two decades to get Kenyan youths back to the farms, the quartet has taken a more unconventional approach on the matter.

James Kimani, Caroline Muteti, Rita Kimani and Peris Nyaboe have created an online solution that not only profiles farmers and the type of farming they do but also allows them to connect with youths and group investors.

Their platform, Farmdrive, helps to connect individuals interested in farming — and who while finding agriculture profitable have no time for the venture — with farmers looking for money to expand their activities.

“It all started with a regional competition which placed a call through the different technology hubs in the region for agricultural startups that could address the challenge of lack of information which most farmers face, or come up with ways to boost their access (to information) through use of technology,” said Ms Kimani.

The challenge

The classmates got interested in the challenge when the Computing for Development (C4D) lab housed at the university urged students pursuing technology courses to take part in the competition.

During a brainstorming session, the four noted that there were several tools created to enhance information sharing and communication between farmers and extension workers and chose to focus on ways of making it easier for farmers to get finances.

“We all study computer science but we have our specialities which we are using to create synergy. What we are trying to do is revolutionise how farmers get access to financial services in the country,” said Mr Kimani.

Farmers can to feed their revenue and expense information in the Farmdrive application and be able to get a graphical representation of whether or not their agricultural venture has good returns or is a money drain.

“As they continue to do so they are able to build their farm profile within the system and we can analyse how their farming is doing, creating a portfolio of creditworthiness for potential investors,” he said.

Their research on information and finance access by farmers was carried out in Kikuyu, Thika and Kiambu.

The four members of Farmdrive who are keen on linking  farmers to individual financiers

“Most of the farmers we talked to hardly kept records on how much they were investing in their farms and did not track productivity. Farmers who had some form of recording systems said that accessing money from banks and microfinance institutions was too bureaucratic,” Ms Nyaboe said.

“At the same time,” Ms Kimani added, “We had also done research on individuals who were passionate about farming and who had funds to invest in farming but either did not have land or time to do it.”

Although loans are awarded to individual farmers, they are expected to form small groups of five on the platform in order to act as a verification tool and reduce defaulting.

This innovative idea saw them through to the recent Agrihackathon championship in Kigali. While Farmdrive did not make it to the top three innovations, the four were able to network and pitch their ideas to an array of venture capitalists and investors some of who are seeking to invest in their platform.

“The simple bookkeeping application that we had conceived six months ago is not what it is right now. It has undergone several coding and other verification systems to make it simpler and user friendly to farmers. We keep on improving the application,” said Ms Kimani.

Unlike other solutions available in the market which are either Android-based, Farmdrive is built on a Responsive Web Design (RWD) aimed at crafting websites to provide an optimal viewing experience.

This means that farmers interested in using Farmdrive are not restricted to a mobile phone with a particular operating system.

As long as their phone has an internet connection they can access the website whose content adjusts to the screen of connecting device.

While farmers are not charged to use the platform, Farmdrive provides an annual membership fee to investors interested in agriculture. This allows them to access information about farmers on the platform and provides a system through which they can contact them.

“We have checks and balances which ensure that investors are legitimate so that we do not expose farmers to criminals,” said Mr Kimani.
The team has been running a pilot that involves 20 farmers in Kiambu County.

While they have been receiving positive feedback from the users, they are looking to validate their business model before releasing the application to the market by end of the first quarter.

“Agribusiness is a profitable venture and also expansive in nature, for now we are focusing on connecting dairy and poultry farmers to individual investors. In the long run we hope to expand nationwide and to include more farmers, allowing an individual in Nairobi to invest in a maize farm in Trans Nzoia County,” said Ms Kimani.

Mr Kimani said that he was comfortable working with the three female students, who he described as innovative and considerate in the management of the startup.

He said that most of the business decisions are consensual.

“Since we are techies and not quite privy to agribusiness, we have sought experts in agriculture and business to be our mentors and help in validating our business models. If we cannot agree among ourselves about a decision to take ,we seek the opinion of the experts,” Ms Nyaboe said.

Rap them back to the farms

While people will still be in the valentine weekend spirit, contemporary Kenyan rapper will be holding another concert in Nakuru town within the Rift valley.

  

Unlike other concerts where music will be the main theme, here all matters agriculture will hold first priority.

It is another town for the firming is cool circuit perhaps an effort to target the youth in particular to   go back to farming.

The use of Juliani as the brand face for the farming is cool nationwide tour is symbolic not only because the rapper has a huge following on social media and also due to his celebrity status but also due to the fact that he came from a humble background and before making it  big in the music industry was barely trying to survive like many  unemployed Kenyan youth.

It is the same message that Nigerian superstar D’banj was selling in addis ababa last month  as part of the one campaign lobbying governments to increase the financial allocation to the agricultural sector to about 10 per  cent of the national budget.

Soon after D’banj was officially launched there was a lot of criticism as to whether he was the right person for the job, as with the Juliani here back in Kenya, the main argument for many critics being that they neither sing about farming or potray the lifestyles of hardworking farmers.

I view things differently. By 2050 Africa will still have among the highest number of hungry people in the world only that the numbers would have doubled. Yet Africa as at now has the largest percentage of uncultivated land in the world and among the highest number of unemployed youths.

Me thinks. We need to get as many youths back to the farms as soon as possible in order to bolster the continent’s food baskets. If we are to rap them all the way back to the fields then so be it!!

So I urge you to take time from your lovey dovey moments this weekend and spread some farm love by turning up for some farm love if you will be in and around Nakuru!

You would be shock to learn how easy it is to access agricultural financing and other necessary farm inputs!!