Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s institute said data-driven planning could boost the performance of Kenya’s agriculture sector.
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change said the lack of a unified data platform hampers coordinated intervention in key areas, including distribution of inputs such as seeds and fertiliser, and other subsidies.
“The age we are in is an age of data and stakeholders in Kenya must look at data as a big bet to growing agricultural productivity,” Rishon Chimboza, the institute’s executive director for Africa said in an interview.
“It allows you to design and define interventions on productivity or subsidy schemes. It’s all about data-driven planning,” he added.
Agriculture remains Kenya’s mainstay economic activity, accounting for about 23 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Key challenge
However, a key challenge in the Kenyan agricultural sector is the lack of accurate, timely, and reliable data on growers, markets, and weather which is critical for decision making.
Several initiatives under the Agriculture ministry are presently underway to try and address the gaps through the creation of a unified data platform.
“We have done a lot of work towards the adoption of a common data platform for the agriculture sector and we see an ultimate outcome of food security, better pricing, and marketing of produce. The onus is on the Kenyan government to make this a reality,” Mr Chimboza said.
As part of the drive to digitise and place agricultural data on a common platform, the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (Kalro), with World Bank support through the Kenya Climate-Smart Agriculture Project and Kenya – National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project have also embarked on creating a big data platform to transform Kenya’s agriculture and food system.
The platform enables Kalro to integrate agro weather and market data from all physical markets in Kenya and leverage it to give farmers and policymakers customised information.
Voice response
In the scheme, advisories on good agricultural practices across 19 value chains have also been digitised and made available to farmers via apps, a web portal, and an automated phone system technology that allows incoming callers to access information via a voice response system or pre-recorded messages. BY DAILY NATION