Kajiado, Kenya targets mobile phone platform to improve farmer yields and income

For the longest time, Elizabeth Meroi, a farmer in Kajiado, has been at the mercy of middlemen. Year in, year out, she put in resources to produce crops and rear livestock, hoping for a good return only for the traders to offer prices that could hardly cover the cost of production. She has been captive in an exploitative system that has over the years seen farmers’ welfare deteriorate while that of middlemen improves. It has largely been enabled by the challenges that farmers face such as drought and lack of access to accurate and real-time market information on where to sell their farm produce. Middlemen have been making a killing by preying on their desperation. But this looks set to change with the introduction of Kenya Agricultural Markets Information Systems (Kamis), a project being rolled by Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project (KCSAP). It seeks to increase agricultural productivity and build resilience to climate change risks in among smallholder farming and pastoral ...