Mrs. Neema Bakari of Kimorigo village is a smallholder farmer who is an active member of Eldoro Irrigation Scheme is slowly but steadily rising above the odds and challenges as a smallholder farmer is happy to narrate her successes in banana farming. Neema has been cultivating bananas for three years from 2013 on her three (3) acre piece of land. Mrs. Neema is a beneficiary of capacity building events facilitated by Farm Concern International (FCI) through collection center leaders on market led production, business development and entrepreneurship courtesy of USAID Kenya Agricultural Value Chain Enterprises Programme. These capacity building events have seen her adopt good agronomic practices as well as practice market-led production.

Mrs. Neema`s approach on market led production has been gradual but strategic since she is replacing old variety (Kimalindi) banana plants with the improved variety plantlets called Williams. This is because Williams is more resistant to pests and diseases especially the deadly leaf spot Sigatoka disease and matures earlier with more yields compared to local varieties Kimalindi and Kinguruwe. Neema has learnt about record keeping and budgeting skills and has been able to fully appreciate farming as her current livelihood and a potential employer to many others.

Neema began selling her bananas collectively as part of a consignment to Taveta and Kongowea market from May this year through Eldoro Samburu II aggregation cente. On average she is able to harvest up to 40 bunches a week which she sales at Ksh350 (USD3.4) per bunch, whereas in the previous months selling the same size of banana bunch at between Kshs.200-250 (USD1.96-2.45) through local agents. Neema appreciates the market linkages FCI has facilitated since she can now earn an extra Kshs100 (USD 98 cents) per bunch.

As a result of the established business relationship and market linkage, Mrs. Neema, who is sole breadwinner, has gained a sizable and sustainable income.

Neema has used her proceeds to pay school fees for her two children one in Polytechnic and one in primary school of Ksh18,000 (USD 176) a semester and Ksh15000 (USD 147) per term respectively, make a down payment of Kshs 30,000 (USD 294) for a motor vehicle and save Ksh10,000 (USD 98) in microfinance institution.

Neema continues to campaign for market-led production as it enables farmers enjoys income from their farms and cash in from farming business.

Mr. Clement Kilonzi is a farmer from Kaani Location in Machakos County who attended Machakos County Agricultural Trade Fair organized by USAID Kenya Agricultural Value Chain Enterprises project on 22nd March 2016. Clement left his home with high hopes and anticipation of a bright day full of new learning experience.

The exhibitors did not disappoint because they gave Clement the solution he had been searching for years; the spray programme for his mango trees. “I was eager to learn how to control pests and diseases to ensure high quality mangoes. The outlay of the exhibition tents was very organized and well labelled thus guided me to the agro chemicals section where an officer from Sygenta took me through the mango spray programme. I was handed with brochures for reference and exchanged contacts with the officer for enquiries. I left the tent a fulfilled farmer sure that my mango trees will bear high quality fruits at the end of the next season.”

Clement went on with the learning as he visited other exhibition tents and later left the venue with high hopes of increased income from his mango farm in the next season. Clement has been following the spray programme and kept contact with the field staff who has visited him several times and advised on mango agronomy and pest and disease control. This is evidenced by the healthy mango plants in his farm at the flowering stage. Clement expects to harvest 5,000 pieces of mangoes in the coming season which is a 67% increase from the previous harvest.

Farm Concern International (FC)I’s continuous active participation with the smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa has provided avenues for enhancing the smallholder farmer’s lives and competitiveness through various innovative interventions that are research driven. Significantly, FCI gathered critical data and information in 2014 that analyzed distances and time taken by smallholder farmers to get to reliable sources of farm inputs. The findings of this analysis indicated that these two fundamentals, time and distance, are prohibitively challenging to smallholder farmers’ commercialization attempts. In addressing these challenges, FCI has come up with a technology innovation dubbed the E-Women Afma-X. 

The Afma-X Innovation

The E-Women Afma-X - (Africa Markets and Farms Exchange) technology has been developed by Farm Concern International -(FCI) with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under GCE Phase1.

It is an integrated virtual platform for input sourcing, services and commodity virtual trading that integrates marketing, business services, payment systems and partnerships, aiming at reducing time, labour and cost for small holder farmers, particularly targeting women.

The technology developed by FCI, is designed to leverage on the mobile phone technology that is wide spread across many African countries, Kenya being among them. The intervention has been rolled out in 10 commercial villages in Central and Eastern regions in Kenya and has currently enrolled 8,669 Small holder Farmers.

Instant results of the technology 

In the two regions where this technology was piloted targeting 5000 small holder farmers, impressive results have been recorded that emphasize the critical role of the Afma-X Technology among small holder farmers. The pilot phase surpassed the targeted number of small holder farmers by registering 8,699 farmers, a 173.9% success (FCI 2014 data). 

From these farmers, FCI has managed to assess the actual impact generated through adoption of the Afma-X technology. From the findings, small holder farmers have significantly managed to realize improved farm production (34.3%) and  increased standards of living (28.6%).

This is an indication that with enhanced roll out of this technology, Small Holder Farmers in Africa will increasingly become more productive and commercialized. Looking forward ,FCI hopes that the innovative E-women dial up Afma-X platform will be rolled out all over Kenya and subsequently into Sub-Saharan Africa to millions of small holder farmers who are continually challenged by low productivity and poor market access so as to transform their lives by enhancing input access, improved market efficiency and increased availability of market information.

Women in Africa continue to hold a key role in rural food production and are daily engaged in moving the wheels of economy. However, the conditions under which they undertake these are highly prohibitive and prone to low productivity and massive losses. The e-mama initiative implemented by Farm Concern International (FCI) is geared towards dealing with these challenges that have overshadowed women farmers for many years in Africa. 

E-Women, AFMAX (Africa Markets and Farms Exchange) platform is a mobile phone based innovation developed by FCI that is aimed at reducing labor and time spent by women smallholder farmers in accessing quality farm inputs, services and market information with minimal mobility. With the increased access to mobile phones in Kenya, e-mama is leveraging on mobile technology to reduce time and labor spent by women smallholder farmers while sourcing for farm inputs, markets for their produce and agronomic information thus enhancing productivity thereby increasing the value retained by the women smallholder farmers.

FCI has been implementing the pilot phase of this innovation in 10 Commercial Villages (CVs) in Central and Eastern Kenya where over 5,300 small holder farmers are actively using the platform.