A poultry farmer.[Photo/Nation]

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Three major organisations have partnered to introduce a farming technology that is meant to revolutionise farming among smallholder farmers across the country.

Mercy Corps, MasterCard Foundation, and Safaricom have launched  DigiFarm which is a mobile phone platform that will help farmers access diverse services such as farm inputs, agricultural information, financial access and also help them to find buyers for their produce.

The platform which was launched four months ago and is now being piloted in four counties. 

Leesa Shrader, programme director at Mercy Corps’ Agrifin Accelerate said DigiFarm is a digital platform that gets data from farmers, for example, the size of one’s farm, the crops grown, how much he has saved on mobile money service and then uses the data to create a profile for the farmer.

“When a farmers on the DigiFarm platform applies for a loan they receive feedback within three minutes telling them how much they can access. The farmers can then use the loan to buy afordable and high quality inputs. Buyers are available on the platform,” said Ms Shrader, adding this year they target to access more than 10 counties.

Mercy Corps’ Agrifin Accelerate programme is a US$25 million three-country, six-year initiative supported by the Mastercard Foundation.

This platform should benefit one million smallholder farmers in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia by closing the gap in access to financial, informational and market services.

Speaking during Agrifin Accelerate program in Nairobi this week,Ms Shrader said: “In Kenya, our 2017 study of smallholders found that over 90 per cent use mobile phones to access financial services and information regardless of education, gender or age and the use of smart phones is on the rise.”