Finnish Mission Kenya (Fida International), in partnership with Full Gospel Churches of Kenya (FGCK) and ICT4D Kenya experimented with the use of digital technology to digitize Agricultural training modules and content from the experts to community-based facilitators who in turn train individual farmers through farmers’ groups.
Introduction:
Agriculture is a critical sector in Kenya as a hub of economic activities. Modernization of traditional agricultural practices is a crucial component not only to increasing efficiency but also in making agriculture profitable and attractive youthful generation for job creation. There is a need for timely and coordinated extension services, particularly agricultural capacity building end-to-end from production to markets, through training. However, providing timely and updated training information to farmers is challenging due to the lack of suitable technology-driven platforms to reach out to them. Agricultural training content was digitized in a mobile run application format, with online and offline capabilities, for training purposes. Digitized information is shared through SMS, a feature supported by numerous feature phones.
Results:
Through 17 farmer groups, 204 individual farmers were trained through lead farmers using the digitized agricultural content.
Scaling:
Based on evidence on the effectiveness of using digital agricultural content for capacity building of farmers, there are plans to scale to reach more farmers.
Fida International Kenya: Digitization of Farmers’ Training Materials (PDF)