The youth and mobile phones to spark agricultural revolution

Jane Karuku is the first female president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra). Karuku also sits on the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition.

Kingwa Kamencu spoke to her about what Agra is doing in partnership with smallholder farmers to spark an agricultural renaissance in Africa and what it will take for Kenya’s agricultural industry to attain its maximum potential.

The long rains have failed again. Does this herald the end of rain-fed agriculture?

It doesn’t. If farmers use drought-resistant crops and improved soil fertility management technologies, they can mitigate the effects of less rain. Agra is working with breeders and seed companies to ensure that drought-resistant seeds are available and technology on soil fertility is more accessible.

Irrigation could provide a solution out of this but this would have to be something considered for the long-term because as it is, the percentage of irrigated land is small, and setting up large-scale irrigation infrastructure requires massive investment.

There has been a lot of talk about climate change and its impact on food security. How grave is the challenge?

Weather systems are becoming more erratic and violent, and studies show that many areas are likely to see less rain in the future. This means there is also an increased incidence of drought. Majority of Kenyan farmers rely on rainfall for their production, which means climate change could easily affect our agricultural economy.

What innovations can farmers turn to if they want to make up for the rain deficit and still reap good harvests?

Generally, mobile phones have in the past years made work easier for farmers, where they use them to access information on the weather, markets, prices, new practices and products. More specifically, related to what we’re doing, farmers can use technologically improved seeds, which are drought-resistant, mature quicker, and tailored for their locations. They can also take up the latest soil fertility management techniques, which would help both in the short and long-term.

What are Agra priority areas and how have they been of help to farmers?

Agra programmes focus on different parts of the agriculture value chain. We fund programmes related to research, training of scientists, breeding of improved seed varieties, improvement of soil and strengthening the capacity of different players in the value chain.

For example, the Programme for Africa’s Seed Systems has come up with over 450 new improved seed varieties that can give farmers a better yield because they are disease and drought resistant. Apart from this, we get the seed varieties out of the labs and into farmers’ hands by networking seed companies with agro-dealers and farmers. We support agro-dealers, farmers’ associations and people running seed businesses.

Our other programmes are geared at improving soil health, increasing markets, and providing storage to reduce post-harvest losses. One of the things we’ve been working on in relation to this is a warehouse receipt system, where farmers can take their grains, get a receipt and use that as collateral in a bank.

Speaking of banks, one of the regular questions readers ask is how they can access credit facilities if they are in agribusiness. Does Agra have any project that offer financing?

Agra recognises the challenge farmers have in getting capital and, yes, one of our largest current programmes does try to address this. We help farmers’ access capital in partnership with the government, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and Agricultural Finance Corporation. We signed a Risk Sharing Facility Agreement that now allows three commercial banks in Kenya — Barclays Bank, Cooperative Bank and K-Rep Bank — to extend loans to farmers without worrying about bad credits. The programme gives loans for farm inputs and for cash advances needed for urgent things like school fees and medical bills as farmers wait to be paid for their produce. The other set of loans is for small agricultural business players. There’s the perception that farmers are a bad risk for banks but our experience so far has shown no case of defaults.

Talk about markets for produce, especially in Kenya.

There’s need for the setting up of infrastructure in many places, where people can bring their produce and buyers can come to buy. But the private sector is also an important market to consider and we help link farmers to them as this increases security and sustainability. We are currently working with an association of sorghum farmers in Machakos to link them to breweries. In all this, mobile phones have proved to be important for farmers to market their goods and know the price of produce. We’ve seen this with a group of banana farmers we’ve been partnering with, who transact by M-pesa. It has reduced the number of brokers, increased efficiency and ensured the growers get more money than they did before.

Would you advise your favourite niece to take up a career in farming?

I would. The barrier for the youth has been the notion that farming involves spending treacherously long hours in the sun and digging with a hoe. We need to show them the other side of agribusiness, to help them see that it is innovative, profitable, interesting and attractive. The youth will get interested to do something if it’s different and interesting. I’ve already observed things starting to change. One of my son’s friends in her early 20s keeps cows for milk. One trend that I think we’ll come out more and more with the youth will be urban farming. We’ll also see farming done differently with technology used more, smarter packaging, shorter time periods for harvest, and unique and exotic produce.

Which countries can Kenyan farmers learn from and look up to as a benchmark to get better?

One would be the Netherlands. It’s a small country, most of which used to be under water. Despite its size and despite the fact that it is under snow almost half the year, it uses the little it has intensively such that it feeds the whole of Europe and has more for export. It also runs on cooperatives where the biggest bank in the country is actually a cooperative. This combination of elements of research, cooperatives, attention paid to the smallholder farmer and supportive policies come together and enable the Dutch to become a serious player in agriculture. The other country would be Israel. It is a desert but it exports food to almost every continent.

What is in the future for Agra?

We want to do more to document the success stories we have found and share them with partners. The idea is to then convene around these to shape conversations, which will be helpful for the African continent.

The other thing we wish to do is continue to be active on the level of policy. We are working with the African Union to urge African governments to allocate a minimum of 10 per cent of their national budgets to agriculture as promised in the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.