Digital Market and Information Access

Summary

Farm Kiosk is an online platform that facilitates farmers’ access to markets, service providers and expert information. Personally customizable for different crops and accessible via mobile and web, Farm Kiosk also offers translations between local languages and Swahili, East Africa’s main language.

Challenge/Problem

In developing countries, digital technology has been a major player in transforming the agricultural sector. Real-time data helps farmers make business decisions and access services such as financing. However, in sub-Saharan Africa, many smallholder farmers have yet to embrace the digital movement. This digital gap creates inefficiencies in connecting with markets and service providers.

Particularly because digital technology is appealing to younger workers, its slow uptake means slower progress in addressing the major challenge of attracting job-seeking and entrepreneurial youth to agriculture. Targeting young workers is especially important because 70 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population is younger than 30.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has only worsened the situation of Africa’s food and agriculture sector, especially for smallholder farmers who have largely been missing out on the transformative power of digital technology. 

Access to digital technology can offer smallholder farmers significant advantages by providing links to suppliers and information. It allows users to tap into workforce talent, build strategic partnerships, and access support services such as training, finance and market reach.

It is necessary to find effective solutions that enable smallholder farmers, especially youth and women, to leapfrog traditional practices, increase efficiency, access services, and enhance their output.

Solution                                                 

Farm Kiosk is an online platform that facilitates farmers’ access to markets, service providers and expert information. For instance, by connecting farmers with off-takers, Farm Kiosk provides farmers with practical agribusiness information. It also links people who are interested in practicing agribusiness but do not own land with people leasing out their land for agribusiness in any part of the country.

Farm Kiosk’s unique, user-friendly profile features connect farmers to markets, agribusiness service providers (including providers of farm equipment for hire and experts such as soil scientists) and extension specialists.  These connections support the village agent model, extending services to remote smallholder farmers. Experts are in charge of the content published in the Mobile App and able to assist extension workers whenever they are confronted with a difficult-to-diagnose situation.

Farm Kiosk has different profile features that help the platform identify the types of produce farmers in specific locations are likely to deal in during a given season. The platform also anticipates harvest periods, enabling farmers to track their progress throughout the season. Farmers’ data informs Farm Kiosk’s linkages with a wide range of value chain actors, from pre-production to post-production. To improve traceability and quality checks from pick-up points to consumption points, Farm Kiosk is integrating a tracking feature in its system.

The platform supports 12 local languages, allowing customers to trade and track business in their local languages and helping to bridge the digital gap.

 “As young agriprenuers, we all need to be thinking and operating with the future in mind. I love the fact that the team at Farm Kiosk are building something huge and futurist on top of enticing more young people into the agribusiness space.”

-  Ruth Makada - Aroma Organic Farm - Rukungiri

Results

- To date, Farm Kiosk has worked with 42 women’s groups and 20 youth groups in eight districts: Mityana, Mubende, Kassanda, Masaka, Luweero, Mpigi, Jinja and Mayuge. It has reached over 1,535 smallholder farmers with climate-smart approaches and structured trainings on financial and digital literacy.

- Farm Kiosk is working with 37 business-targeting smallholders and 585 customer-targeting smallholders, 66 per cent of whom are women and 78 per cent of whom are young people.

- Farm kiosk is working as well with 60 micro agroprocessors across the seven districts of Mityana, Mubende, Kassanda, Masaka, Luweero, Mpigi and Mayuge in Uganda.

Lessons Learned

For young people to embrace information and communication technology (ICT) in agribusiness, there are two main bottlenecks that need to be addressed: 1) initiating farmers’ groups and training them in climate-smart approaches and financial and digital literacy, and 2) enrolling farmers in digital platforms that enable them to market their produce and connect with different value chain actors in their chosen language.

In the wake of COVID-19, governments need to intentionally support innovative youth start-ups not only in agribusiness, but also in the fields of health and education. A specific revolving fund or other stimulus package could transform a sector, especially one using new approaches and emerging technologies like Farm Kiosk.

Next Steps

Farm Kiosk aims to expand its services to all 10 agricultural zones of Uganda, purchase delivery trucks, and establish a call centre and storage facility, all of which will enhance the creation of jobs in the sector.

Farm Kiosk also aims to create a network among farmer cooperatives and small and medium-sized agribusinesses.  In the coming years, Farm Kiosk expects to contribute to creating 5 per cent of the jobs in the agribusiness space directly for young people and women in 28 districts.