Digifarm Village Advisor Training on Cropin App Highlight Video

For the last five years, Safaricom has been on a journey to achieve a very ambitious goal of transforming the Kenyan farmer. To achieve this, Safaricom enlisted the support of one of its key partners, Mercy Corps AgriFin.

DigiFarm has grown over the years with over 1.3 Million farmers registered in the platform across various counties in Kenya. DigiFarm is offering them a bundle of services including access to quality farm inputs, affordable input loan, learning materials, quality advisory services, insurance cover for their produce, soil testing services and access to markets.

To reach the farmers, DigiFarm utilizes the services of farmers’ representatives known as DigiFarm village advisors or DVAs. As the number of registered farmers increased, so did the number of DVAs. The increased number of DVAs posed a challenge in effectively managing, monitoring and incentivizing them. To manage the DVAs better, Safaricom with support from Mercy Corps AgriFin engaged Cropin technologies to deploy a mobile app to be used by the DVAs. This application has many benefits.

To introduce the app, DigiFarm’s extension and implementing partner Kenya Livestock Producers Association was tasked to organize training seminars for the DVAs and the managers. The first to be trained were DigiFarm managers and extension officers. They were trained by a team from Cropin technologies in Nairobi and did some practical field work at Ndumberi in Kiambu.

With the extension officers and county managers having understood the app, a countrywide training program for DVAs was rolled out. A training was held in Nakuru for the rift valley region. Another training was held in Migori for the luo Nyanza region; Webuye hosted the training for the western region, Makindu for the Lower Eastern region and Meru for the Mount Kenya region.

Across the various regions, DVAs were taken through the Cropin app. They were later issued with mobile gadgets installed with the app and practical sessions organized so that the DVAs would try the app in a farm set up.

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