E-Agriculture

Posts on the topic "Kenya"

Posts on the topic "Kenya"

  • GIS and Remote Sensing for agricultural resource management Course

    GIS and Remote Sensing for agricultural resource management Course Date 17 th – 21 st July 2017 Location Indepth Research Training Centre, Nairobi, Kenya Description For optimum utilization of available agricultural land resources on a sustainable basis, timely and reliable information regarding...
    Kenya

  • FarmDrive improves access to credit for smallholder farmers

    Over 90% of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 million smallholder farmers lack access to formal credit. Although agriculture accounts for around 65% of employment and 32% of gross domestic product, less than 6% of commercial loan recipients are smallholder farmers. The problem is on both sides: on the one hand, farmers cannot purchase quality inputs to improve their production, on the other hand, financial institutions cannot provide loans without an accurate assessment of the farmers’ financial viability. Farmers are therefore left with little access to credit, and financial institutions with a hole...

  • Now Scientific Fact: Mobile Money Can Lift Women Out of Poverty

    Mobile money is a service that allows monetary value to be stored on a mobile phone and sent to other users via text messages. Mobile money was first introduced in South Africa and the Philippines about 10 years ago. In Kenya, this service was introduced in March 2007 and was called “M-PESA” (M is for mobile, “pesa” is Swahili for “money”), which became the country’s dominant mobile money service. M-PESA has since been celebrated internationally as an innovation that can bring the unbanked population into the formal financial system, with associated impacts on economic well-being and welfare...

  • Kenya Opens Up Agricultural Data

    In 2011, the Kenyan government launched the Kenya Open Data Initiative, making key government data freely available to the public through a single online portal. Kenya Open Data is an initiative designed to make developmental, demographic, statistical and expenditure data available in a useful digital format for researchers, policymakers, ICT developers and the general public. The data is divided in categories such as agriculture, energy, water, infrastructure, health and governance, among others. Agriculture is central in this project as agricultural and rural development can only be...

  • Kenya Civil Aviation Authority has approved draft regulations on the commercial use of drones

    After a two-year ban of unmanned aereal vehicles for non-military reasons in Kenya, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) has approved draft regulations on the commercial use of drones in the country. The law will be released soon, according to governemnt officials. Kenya is the second African nation after Rwanda to grant the permission to fly drones for commercial use. An article released in May 2016 by the Daily Nation newspaper, Kenya's largest, reported that more than 1,000 applicants were already seeking regulatory approvals to operate drone-based transport services in Kenya. Among...

  • New Nutrition Knowledge Bank gives Africans and Asians direct access to expert nutritional advice on their mobile phones

    A new open-access Nutrition Knowledge Bank has been created as part of a GSMA mNutrition initiative to help tackle malnutrition in Africa and Asia. The information will be shared through text messages, voice messages and factsheets. The project aims to reach 3 million people in 12 developing countries . Malnutrition is believed to be one of the main plagues in developing countries although it being a problem that can be tackled through information and knowledge dissemination. In the whole world, one out of three people suffer from some form of malnutrition. Poor health is just one of the...

  • Youth and Technology: The Missing Link in Agriculture

    Photo credits: Young Africa Works This is the title of a blog post by Brian Bosire, founder of UjuziKilimo , an agricultural technology company that brings affordable precision farming to smallholder farmers in Kenya, faces the issue of technology adoption among smallholders in Kenya. Although the vast majority of the population in the country is young (60% of the population is under 30), the average age among farmers is 60. The article points out that at such an old age, farmers are much less likely to adopt new technologies for their farming practices. At the same time, young people are...

  • Arifu platform Adaptive Learning System

    One of the main challenges for development of smallholder farmers' livelihoods is access to market information and financial services. Smallholder farmers are the most underserved group in the world by financial services, with women and youth at a particular disadvantage. Arifu is a platform that provides customer capability-building through mobile technology. The Kenya-based platform tests, refines, and hosts content developed by various educational organizations via SMS on mobile phones. Arifu has a team of digital learning experts who work with providers to design and develop behaviorally-...

  • Mobile marketplace digitises East Africa’s agriculture

    THOUSANDS of smallholder farmers in the region are set to benefit from a digital platform connecting them to agents, buyers and banks in East Africa. Launched by Mastercard , 2KUZE, as the platform is known, is the latest offering in the region hailed as the cradle of African technology innovation. The agricultural technology app was developed at Mastercard's Nairobi Labs for Financial Inclusion with the support of the Gates Foundation. 2KUZE’s primary value proposition is connecting farmers, agents, and buyers on a digital platform toward greater pricing transparency and more effective...