This archive report was first published on 1 September 2019.
Published on September 1, 2019, Yara East Africa, a fertiliser manufacturing firm, has partnered with six counties in Nyanza and South Rift to develop digital solutions to address challenges facing smallholder farmers.
County Executive Committee members in charge of agriculture from Kisii, Nyamira, Kericho, Bomet, Migori, and Homa Bay met in Kisii town to discuss the partnership. The meeting aimed to develop digital solutions to improve crop yields and address challenges facing smallholder farmers.
Yara East Africa Commercial Director Vitalis Wafula said the company has developed a mobile phone-based weather application specifically targeting smallholder farmers in various parts of the country. The Yara Farm weather application provides information about weather patterns in a given region for a period of up to four months with 80 per cent accuracy.
Head of Digital Farming at Yara Fred Nyambare said that they had several digital solutions for farmers in the pipeline but farmers had ranked accurate weather prediction as their first priority in ensuring that they carry out their activities well.
Yara East Africa Kenya Country Manager William Ng'eno said the firm looks at soils and develops fertilisers suited to specific crops in the regions. He said the company partners with counties and distributors to ensure this knowledge gets down to the farmers.
Albert Kirui, the proprietor of Tulwet Farmers Agrovet in Kericho County and distributor of Yara fertilisers, expressed satisfaction with Yara's approach to ensure knowledge goes down to the farmers and collaboration with counties and distributors.
Yara East Africa has been in the market for 115 years, but most farmers might not recognise the company by name and are only aware of the farm inputs that they produce such as their fertilisers.
