Summary Document April 2019 - World Bankdocuments.worldbank.org/curated/en/... · 12 Central Bank...
Transcript of Summary Document April 2019 - World Bankdocuments.worldbank.org/curated/en/... · 12 Central Bank...
Summary Document
April 2019
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Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 4
Context ............................................................................................................................................... 4
Trends in DAT Innovation in Africa and Kenya ............................................................................. 5
Vision of the One Million Farmer Initiative ................................................................................... 7
Conference Description and Agenda ................................................................................................. 9
Description ........................................................................................................................................ 9
Agenda ............................................................................................................................................. 10
Welcome Remarks .............................................................................................................................. 13
Welcome Remarks by Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and
Irrigation .......................................................................................................................................... 13
Welcome Remarks by Country Director, The World Bank Group ............................................ 16
Key Points Discussed During the Welcome Remarks ................................................................ 18
Key Learnings from Knowledge Sessions ........................................................................................ 21
Background of DAT Challenge and Conference - Vision of One Million Farmer Initiative ... 21
DATs’ Role in the Kenyan context ................................................................................................ 22
Knowledge Panel 1: Agricultural Productivity ............................................................................. 23
Knowledge Panel 2: Market Linkages .......................................................................................... 25
Knowledge Panel 3: Farmer Financial Inclusion .......................................................................... 27
Knowledge Panel 4: Data Analytics and Intelligence ................................................................. 29
Investment Roundtable.................................................................................................................. 31
Policies for Disruptive Agriculture Technology .......................................................................... 32
Ignite Talk: Harnessing the Power of Communities ................................................................... 34
Ignite Talk: Disruptive Technology as Game-changers for Small-scale Agribusinesses ....... 35
Ignite Talk: Revolutionizing the Use of Data for Policymaking (The Case of Agriculture
Observatory in Kenya) .................................................................................................................... 36
Closing Remarks ............................................................................................................................. 37
DAT Challenge .................................................................................................................................... 40
Challenge Overview ........................................................................................................................ 40
Challenge Process ........................................................................................................................... 41
Challenge Track Descriptions ........................................................................................................ 42
Theme 1 - Agricultural Productivity Challenge ....................................................................... 42
Theme 2 - Market Linkages (Off-taker Market Access) Challenge....................................... 43
Theme 3 - Farmer Financial Inclusion Challenge .................................................................... 44
Theme 4 - Data Analytics and Intelligence Challenge ........................................................... 45
Jury Composition and Judging Criteria ....................................................................................... 47
Selection of the First Cohort of DAT Innovators by the Jury .................................................... 51
Partners ................................................................................................................................................ 53
The World Bank Group .................................................................................................................. 53
The Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility ................................................................................. 53
The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI) ............................... 53
The United Nations Partnership for SDGs Platform ................................................................... 53
Kuza Biashara .................................................................................................................................. 54
Dalberg Advisors ............................................................................................................................ 54
Introduction
Context
The World Bank Group defines ‘Disruptive Agricultural Technologies (DATs)’ as digital
and non-digital innovations that enable smallholder farmers to overcome their current
constraints. The World Bank’s definition of DATs is a broad one, which takes into account the
rapid evolution of underlying technologies and business models, as well as the need to tailor
these technologies to specific market and value chain contexts. Relevant agricultural
technologies include digitally-enabled advisory and climate information services, digitally
enabled services that link farmers to production inputs (including mechanization), digitally-
enabled services that link farmers and their produce to buyers and markets, macro agriculture
decision intelligence tools that can inform government, funder, and agribusiness resource
allocation decisions, and data intermediary services that collect and analyze farm or farmer
data as an input into downstream decisions and use cases (e.g., drone farm surveillance,
weather data analytics, satellite crop monitoring, pest & disease surveillance systems). Beyond
such agri-tech products and services, other in scope include agri-energy nexus products (e.g.,
solar off-grid irrigation, processing and cold-chain solutions), portable agriculture diagnostic
tools (e.g., crop, soil, agricultural input diagnostic equipment), and bio-fortified foods.
DAT innovations provide many benefits to smallholder farmers and agribusinesses and
help them to optimize their operations and improve productivity. While traditional
solutions have only produced single-digit annual productivity growth for major crops, DATs
have the potential to provide enough disruption to lead to double-digit productivity growth.
These innovations directly address critical constraints that farmers face such as low yields, lack
of access to markets, and inability to access credit finance. DATs can be a tool to improve
yields via tailored advisory services using farm-specific data. They can also enable farmers to
access a range of buyers locked in at good price points and increase transaction transparency
in the process. Digitally tracking transactions and farm-specific information, can assist the
credit vetting process undertaken by financial institutions and potentially lead to increased
access to capital. As such, DAT innovations enable smallholder farmers and agribusinesses to
scale-up and improve their productivity, profitability, and competitiveness.
DATs also have the potential to energize African agriculture by drawing in youth. In
Africa, about 70% of the population is under 30, with the youth population growing faster than
any other region.1 This further exacerbates the concern about the increasing youth
unemployment rate. High youth employment results in several challenges such as reduced
economic growth, increased crime rates, and poverty traps. DAT innovations can help to
mitigate this as they create many new, higher quality jobs in the agriculture sector like farmer
surveillance and data analysis.
1 World Economic Forum, “These are Africa’s fastest-growing cities – and they’ll make or break the continent” 2016.
Trends in DAT Innovation in Africa and Kenya
Over the past two years the number of African DATs has multiplied. Demand for region-
specific innovations and a conducive enabling environment in certain cities and countries has
spurred this growth. Additionally, DATs in Africa are currently at an inflection point where the
falling cost of technology is allowing scalable innovations. For instance, cellular subscriptions
are sky-rocketing – with 420 million unique mobile subscribers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
and mobile internet penetration reaching 240 million people (26% penetration in SSA) in
20162. The emergence of these technologies has generated a new genre of entrepreneurs who
are responding to the local needs and contexts of Africa’s unique food market. Nurturing this
wave of DAT entrepreneurs to help new innovations reach scale would allow African food
systems to leapfrog the innovation gap.
Despite the proliferation of DATs in SSA’s agriculture sector, DATs are yet to witness
systematic and large-scale adoption. According to the Kaufmann Foundation, only 1.1% of
technology innovation start-ups across all sectors scale-up.3 Crucial to scaling up innovations
is the “innovation ecosystem” – an environment that enables entrepreneurs to engage in
iterative processes.4 This includes support structures that can enable smallholder farmers to
adopt new technologies, investments in basic infrastructure (roads, bridges, storage, etc.) and
technology infrastructure (broadband and connectivity), and policies such as tax incentives or
spectrum management to ensure connectivity in rural areas for last mile delivery.5 Scaling up
also requires an ecosystem in which actors including governments, companies, investors, and
development partners can collaborate to provide support to technology innovations across
their life cycles.
The potential impact of DATs is especially promising in Kenya, where the agriculture
sector employs 40% of the total population and more than 70% of the rural people.6 The
importance of the agriculture sector in Kenya has been emphasized by the President’s Big 4
Agenda7 and Vision 2030.8 Given the objective to achieve full food and nutrition security in the
country, there has been demand to transform the sector. Currently the agriculture sector
directly contributes 26% to Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and a further 27% indirectly
through the manufacturing, distribution, and service sectors. 6Given the contribution of
smallholder farmers in the sector it is imperative for them to have the right knowledge, tools,
and resources to drive growth in the sector and DATs have the opportunity to accelerate this
linkages.
2 GSMA Intelligence, “The Mobile Economy Sub-Saharan Africa”, 2017
https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=7bf3592e6d750144e58d9dcfac6adfab&download 3 Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, “Kaufmann Index of Growth Entrepreneurship”, 2017
https://www.kauffman.org/kauffman-index/reporting/-/media/8cbc2c338f81411ab3ac9a39b94c2ffa.ashx 4 World Economics Forum, “Innovation with a Purpose”, 2018 5 World Bank Group, “Enabling the Business of Agriculture”, 2017 6 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “The agriculture sector in Kenya” 7 The Big 4 https://big4.president.go.ke/ 8 Kenya Vision 2030 https://vision2030.go.ke/
Kenya is leading the agricultural technology space in Africa as one of the top-rated
digital ecosystems on the continent.9 The country has the third largest tech incubation and
acceleration hub in the region.10 Additionally, mobile connectivity and high penetration rates
contributes to the success of Kenya in the agricultural technology landscape. Kenya has some
of the highest levels of mobile connectivity (i.e., 85-90% penetration of unique mobile
subscribers vs. 44% on average for SSA region).11 The country is also characterized by a robust
mobile money ecosystem, with over 70% of the population using mobile money regularly.12
Meanwhile, in 2017, the mobile penetration rate in Kenya was 59% compared to 44% average
for SSA13, with 30% of rural population owning smartphones while 72% own feature phones. 14
Importantly, approximately 30% of agri-tech start-ups in the SSA region are operating
in Kenya and 18% are headquartered there.15 Using a broader definition of agri-tech,
McKinsey estimated that 25% of all agri-tech startups were likewise headquartered in Kenya
in 2017. This new genre of DAT innovators is thriving. They recognize unique local contexts
and are successfully using cutting-edge technologies to cater to Kenyan smallholder farmers
and smallholder farmer-facing intermediaries like agribusinesses, financial institutions, farmer
cooperatives, and NGOs.
The timing for DATs to scale-up is ripe in Kenya. Many Kenya-focused DATs have
successfully piloted their solutions and are starting to invest in scale-up activities. So far two
players (WeFarm and Safaricom’s Digifarm) have broken the 1 million farmers’ barrier. Falling
technology cost as an industry trend and evolution in business models are further moving the
sector to a tipping point.
Nonetheless, due to a range of ecosystem challenges, many DATs are still constrained.
An assessment conducted by the World Bank Group found DATs are particularly limited in
their economics, impact, and scale. The challenges that underpin this occur across the
ecosystem. There is demand for increased policy clarity and support for DATs in Kenya.
Additionally, early-staged innovators have difficulty securing funding as there are deemed to
have higher risk models. They also lack access to high quality and low-cost data public goods
such as weather data, farmer registries, and soil data. Critically, a major challenge constraining
DATs is an absence of linkages between them and existing agribusiness platforms and players.
This is key because these platforms and players have access to large numbers of smallholder
farmers that DATs can leverage on.
9 Kenya is rated #5 in Africa in the WB Digital Adoption Index (2016), #2 in HBR Digital Evolution Index (2017), #2
in the region based on the global Enabling Digitalization Index (2018) 10 In 2018 Kenya was rated third in the SSA region based on the number of tech incubators and accelerators (30)
out of the 400+ tech incubator/accelerators in Africa (GSMA) 11 GSMA, “The Mobile Economy Sub-Saharan Africa 2018”, 2018 12 Central Bank of Kenya, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and Financial Sector Deepening - Kenya, “FinAccess
Household Survey”, (2018) 13 GSMA, “Accelerating Affordable Smartphone Ownership in Emerging Markets”, 2017 14 Deloitte, “Game of Phones: Deloitte’s Mobile Consumer Survey. The Africa Cut 2015/2016”, 2016 15 Preliminary findings from CTA/Dalberg report on “Digitalisation for Agriculture – Africa", 2019
Vision of the One Million Farmer Initiative
The World Bank believes that a vibrant innovation ecosystem is crucial to the scaling of
DATs. To achieve this, systematic investments in knowledge, innovation, policies, capital, and
incubation are all needed in the country. It must enable innovators to engage in iterative
processes to improve their technologies and business models, prove out their impact and
return on investment, and rapidly extend their reach.16 Kenya already has a budding innovation
ecosystem as evident from the sudden surge in DATs in recent years. This existing system now
needs to be harnessed to drive the scale-up of DATs.
The World Bank along with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and
Irrigation (MoALFI) and Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility is launching the One
Million Farmer Initiative. It is a three-year partnership that will link one million Kenyan
farmers, across 14 different agricultural value chains and 45 counties in Kenya, to a digitally-
enabled platform. The platform will integrate and coordinate the activities of leading Kenya-
focused DATs. The One Million Farmer Initiative will build on and link to existing World Bank
programming in Kenya, most notably the Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project (KCSAP)
and the National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project (NARIG). Both projects
support more than a million farmers, with aggregate investments of $450 million.
Through partnership collaboration, the One Million Farmer Initiative will bring together
a group of best-in-class DATs in Kenya and link these innovators to experts, investors,
agribusinesses, and government partners at national and county levels. All activities will be
centred on a common mission of delivering value to one million Kenyan smallholder farmers
(and related intermediaries) covered by the program. A secondary objective is to create
demonstration effects to validate the replication of this digitally-enabled innovation
ecosystem platform in other geographies beyond Kenya. Currently, the World Bank envisions
extending the initiative to an additional 8-10 African countries drawing on lessons learned in
Kenya.
Through the One Million Farmer Initiative, the World Bank believes that all ecosystem
actors will achieve economies of scale in reaching smallholder farmers. The platform will
enable DAT innovators to take advantage of large-scale identification, data collection, data
analytics services (e.g. agronomy content and geospatial farm and soil maps), as well as
digitized farmer profiles. As such, each ecosystem actor will save on undertaking these
activities themselves or spending more in operating without this information. As a
consequence, this will translate into improved business model sustainability for innovative DAT
businesses.
Smallholder farmers will also receive a host of benefits derived from the One Million
Farmer Initiative. They will have access to affordable services that address major pain-points
16 World Economic Forum, “Innovation with a Purpose”, 2018
in their operation. By up-taking the host of innovations on the platform, they will be able to
increase their yields, receive financial services, access local and international markets, and
many more. Ultimately, through optimizing their operations through innovations, smallholder
farmers will benefit from increased income generation and poverty reduction.
Conference Description and Agenda
Description
The World Bank hosted the Disruptive Agriculture Technology Innovation Knowledge
and Challenge Conference on April 5-6 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya. The aim of the conference
was to mobilize knowledge for the One Million Farmer Initiative across four themes, namely
Agricultural Productivity, Market Linkage, Farmer Financial Inclusion, and Data Analytics and
Intelligence. Along with these four themes, the discourse also included sessions to promote
conducive policies and investment climate (see conference agenda in the next section).
The Conference also included a challenge to mobilize innovators who would join the One
Million Farmer Initiative’s platform as the ‘First cohort of innovators’. The Challenge saw
leading DAT innovators pitch their strategies with the chance of receiving performance
rewards, acceleration funding, incubation, mentoring, and financial support to scale up their
innovations in Kenya. The Conference laid the foundation for the innovations to scale up in
Kenya by connecting a million Kenyan farmers to disruptive agricultural technologies. Coming
out of the DAT Conference and Challenge, further details of the One Million Farmer Initiative
platform will be jointly designed by the innovators, partners, and funders involved over the
next over the next 3 years.
Agenda
Day 1: 5 April 2019, Friday
8:00 - 8:30 AM Registration
Welcome Remarks
8:30 - 9:30 AM Welcomed by: Prof. Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)
& Jeehye Kim, Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group
- Sidharth Chatterjee, United Nations Resident Coordinator
- Edson Mpyisi, Chief Financial Economist and Co-ordinator Enable Youth Programme, African Development Bank
- Sriram Bharatam, Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited
- Paolo Belli, Program Leader, Africa, The World Bank Group
- Mary Nzomo County Executive Committee, Representing the Council of Governors
- Micheni Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation
Background of DAT Challenge and Conference - Vision of One Million Farmer Initiative
9:30 - 9:45 AM Dr. Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group
DATs’ role in the Kenyan context
9:45 - 10:15 AM Michael Hailu, Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA)
Michael Tsan, Partner, Dalberg
10:15 -10:45 AM Coffee Break
Theme 1 – Agricultural Productivity
10:45 – 12:00 PM
Moderator: Dr. Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group & Michael
Tsan, Partner, Dalberg
Knowledge Panelists:
- Boniface Akuku, Director of ICT, Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organisation (KALRO)
- Dr. Benjamin Kwasi Addom, Team Leader, ICTs for Agriculture, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation(CTA)
- Janalize van Buuren, Divisional Sales Manager – East and Central Africa, John Deere
- John Logan, Country Director Kenya, TechnoServe
- Shaun Ferris, Director of Agriculture and Livelihoods, Catholic Relief Service
- Tania Lozansky, Senior Manager, International Financial Corporation (IFC)
12:00 – 1:00 PM Challenge: How will your approach/innovation help ensure Kenyan farmers have achieved disruptive changes in
productivity using the latest knowledge, training, practices, and data?
Presentations and pitching by shortlisted innovators
1:00 – 2:15 PM Networking Lunch
2:15 – 2:30 PM Ignite Talk: Harnessing the Power of Communities
Sriram Bharatam, Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited
Theme 2 - Market Linkages
2:30 – 3:45 PM
Moderator: Jeehye Kim, Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group
Knowledge Panelists:
- Mary Nzomo, County Executive Committee, Trans Nzoia County
- Benjamin Makai, Senior Manager, Technology for Development, Safaricom
- Betty Kibaara, Associate Director, Rockefeller Foundation, Africa Region Office
- Castro Antwi-Dandso, Director of Sales and Marketing, ESOKO
- Mikael L. Clason Höök, Mastercard Foundation Rural and Agricultural Finance Learning Lab
- Sidhartha Samal, Digital Head, Africa & Middle East, OLAM
3:45 – 4:15 PM Coffee Break
4:15 – 5:15 PM
Challenge: Given the limited market linkages for both inputs and production, how can you facilitate linkages between
buyers and sellers along the value chain?
Presentations and pitching by shortlisted innovators
5:15 – 5:30 PM Ignite Talk: Disruptive Technology as game-changers for smallholder Agribusinesses
Tim Chambers, Co-founder & Managing Director and founder, InspiraFarms
5:30 PM onwards Networking Cocktail
Day 2: 6 April 2019, Saturday
Theme 3 - Farmer Financial Inclusion
8:30 - 9:15 AM
Moderator: Diego Arias, Lead Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group & Naoko Koyama-Blanc, Partner, Dalberg
Knowledge Panelists:
- Esther Kasalu-Coffin, Country Director, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
- Leesa Shrader, AgriFin Accelerate Program Director, Mercy Corps
- Lucas Meso, Managing Director, Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC)
- Reuben Gicheha, Program Officer, Financial Inclusion, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
9:15 - 10:00 AM
Challenge: How can your innovation help to expand coverage of financial services to farmers, including credit, savings, and
other financial services?
Presentations and pitching by shortlisted innovators
10:00 - 10:30 AM
Ignite Talk: Revolutionizing the use of data for policymaking (The case of Agriculture Observatory in Kenya)
Dr. Erick C.M. Fernandes, Global Lead - Technology, Innovation, & Climate-Smart Agriculture, The World Bank Group
Caroline Sartorato Silva Franca, Consultant, The World Bank Group
10:30 - 10:45 AM Coffee break
Theme 4 - Data Analytics and Intelligence
10:45 -12:00 PM
Moderator: Ashesh Prasann, Agricultural Economist, The World Bank Group & Michael Tsan, Partner, Dalberg
Knowledge Panelists:
- Boniface Akuku, Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research
Organization (KALRO)
- Christophe Bocquet – Senior Data Scientist & AgriTech Lead, Dalberg Data Insights
- Debisi Araba, Director, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
- Dr. Kala Fleming, Founder, Diaspora AI
- Dr. Ladisy Komba Chengula, Lead Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group
- Stewart Collis, Senior Program Officer, Digital Agriculture Solutions, Gates Foundation
12:00 - 12:45 PM
Challenge: How can you increase access to low-cost and accessible data in agriculture or use existing data to enable other
entities to better serve farmers?
Presentations and pitching by shortlisted innovators
12:45 - 1:45 PM Networking Lunch
Investment Roundtable
1:45 – 2:45 PM
Moderator: Tim Smyth, Kuza Biashara Limited
Knowledge Panelists:
- Anup Jagwani, Principal Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation (IFC)
- Martine Jansen, Manager Data-Driven Innovation, Rabobank Foundation
- Olukemi Dolly Afun-ogidan, Principal Agribusiness Officer, African Development Bank
- Sandeep Khapre, CEO, Binder Dijker Otte (BDO)
- Shudhan Kohli, Co-Founder, and CEO, Grey Elephant Ventures
Policies for Disruptive Agriculture Technology
2:45 – 3:45 PM
Moderator: Arif Neky, Senior Advisor – UN Strategic Partnerships, Coordinator – SDG Partnership Platform, UN Resident
Coordinator’s Office
Knowledge Panelists:
- Prof. Jerome Ochieng, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT)
- Prof. Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)
- Andrew Karlyn, Strategic & Learning Lead, AgriFin Accelerate at Mercy Corps
- Mulat Demeke Desta, Senior Policy Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
- Philip Thigo, Technical Advisor - Data & Innovation, Office of the Deputy President
Synthesis Session
3:45 PM – 4:00 PM Synthesis session: summary of the two days
Michael Tsan, Partner, Dalberg
DAT Awards and Closing Remarks
4:00 – 5:00 PM
Closing Remarks
Simeon Kacou Ehui, Director, The World Bank Group
Jury’s reflection on Challenges
Jury Representatives
Awards: One Million Farmer Initiative ‘First Cohort Awards’
Dina Umali-Deininger, Practice Manager, The World Bank Group
Thank you Note
Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group
Prof. Jerome Ochieng, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT)
Prof. Micheni J. Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)
Mr. Harry K. Kimtai, Principal Secretary - Livestock, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)
Welcome Remarks
Welcome Remarks by Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,
Fisheries and Irrigation
(Represented by the Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of
Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation)
The Government of Kenya, in partnership with the
World Bank Group, Korea World Bank Partnership
Facility (KWPF), and Kuza Biashara, welcomes you to
Savannah Valley for the Disruptive Agricultural
Technology Challenge and Conference 2019.
Kenya is beginning to ride a new wave of a technology
revolution with sky-rocketing cellular subscriptions
(with 28.3M unique mobile subscribers, 60%
penetration17).
Today, Nairobi is the epicenter for technological
innovation. Kenya's $1 billion18 tech hub is the home to
hundreds of innovators, as well as global technology
firms like IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. Our innovators are
focusing their creative energies on challenges that matter most to Kenyans; we believe that
no challenge is more significant than raising agricultural productivity and rural incomes.
Whereas we have made progress in modernizing agriculture in Kenya, however, we have not
yet reached our full potential.
To achieve this potential, we must do agriculture in a different way. The Agriculture Technology
(AgriTech) innovators today are disrupting the conventions in agriculture by providing
solutions to key constraints faced by farmers – financial, market information, data, and advisory
services; therefore, supporting our farmers to leapfrog to new levels of productivity, efficiency,
competitiveness, and income, improve nutritional outcomes and enhance resilience to climate
change. Thus, Kenya is at the forefront of technology-driven transformation for small and
marginal farmers on the continent.
The Agriculture Technology (AgriTech) revolution aligns well with the strategic objectives of
the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALF&I) as it allows us to
create an enabling environment for agricultural development, increase productivity and output
in the agricultural sector, improve market access and trade, and ultimately enhance national
food security. The focus of these innovations has been smallholder agriculture which is in line
with Kenya Vision 2030. Vision 2030 reiterates the importance of transforming smallholder
subsistence agriculture into an innovative, commercially oriented, and modern sector19. These
AgriTech innovations can also help achieve the first flagship goal of Agricultural Sector
17 GSMA intelligence THE MOBILE ECONOMY SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 2017 18 https://www.wired.com/story/kenya-silicon-savannah-photo-gallery/ 19 Kenya Vision 2030
Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) 2019-2029, which aims to increase smallholder
farmers income by targeting 1 million farmers20. Furthermore, the new-age innovators are
attracting skilled youth to agriculture thus fulfilling Kenya’s Youth Agribusiness Strategy which
is aimed at providing new opportunities for youth in agriculture21.
MoALF&I is already leveraging technology to make value chains more efficient and reduce
risks. MoALF&I is working with the Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology
(ICT) to register all farmers in the country, a move that is expected to boost service delivery to
smallholder farmers.22 MoALF&I is also working with the World Bank on Kenya Climate Smart
Agriculture Project (KCSAP) and National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project
(NARIGP) to find ways to make market linkages more effective through digital tools. The
Kenyan Government, together with the Swiss Re Group, GIZ, World Bank and ILRI, is also
implementing the Kenya Livestock Insurance Program (KLIP) since 2014. KLIP is an index-based
livestock insurance program that uses satellite technology to protect pastoralists in the remote,
arid and drought-prone rangelands of Kenya from the impacts of extreme weather.
Hence, the technology revolution has kickstarted well with contributions from all sector actors.
All it needs now is a scale-up to multiply the impact.
At the conference, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)
along with the World Bank Group will launch One Million Farmer Initiative. The One Million
Farmer initiative aims to impact the lives of one million farmers in Kenya by leveraging the
potential of disruptive technologies. To this end, the Conference will mobilize the agricultural
ecosystem to discuss the potential of disruptive technologies in Kenya. Innovators will get an
opportunity to present their ideas and join the One Million Farmer Initiative. We believe that
this Conference will build the momentum to scale-up the innovations and agricultural
technologies by providing a historic platform that brings together global leaders, innovators,
leading policymakers, development partners, and technology experts to discuss innovation for
agricultural transformation in Kenya and beyond.
The two-day conference will provide an interactive experience through:
• The Disruptive Agriculture Technologies (DAT) Challenge will bring together over 20
inspiring innovators to pitch their Agritech solutions focused on smallholder farmers in
Kenya
• 6-panel discussions drawing together 30+ experts in the Agritech field, covering a wide
variety of topics, such as access to advisory services, access to financial services and data
policy for disruptive agriculture technologies.
• The panel discussions and DAT challenge will provide a platform for all innovation
ecosystem players to interact with one another, build a network of Agritech in Nairobi, find
20 Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) 2019-2029 21 http://extwprlegs1.fao.org/docs/pdf/ken171450.pdf 22 https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001280282/government-to-collect-farmers-data-in-4-months https://www.nation.co.ke/business/seedsofgold/Briefs-on-agricultural-news-/2301238-4354850-isnr5rz/index.html
synergies to collaborate and grow together, further channelizing the investments to scale-
up their operations.
I would like to close by highlighting that smallholder agriculture provides employment to 75%
of the population and 80% of food supplies, but has limited access to finance, inputs, markets,
information, and other services. Technology innovations can overcome all these challenges –
but it won’t happen automatically. We need to combine innovation, investment and policy to
harness the power of the technology revolution to benefit smallholder farmers.
I urge you all to engage in the dialogue, share thoughts and ideas on the future of agriculture.
Hon. Mwangi Kiunjuri, EGH, MGH
Cabinet Secretary,
Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation
Welcome Remarks by Country Director, The World Bank Group
(Represented by Paolo Belli, Program Leader, Africa, World Bank Group)
I am pleased to welcome you all to the first ever Disruptive
Agricultural Technology Challenge and Conference.
At the World Bank Group, we are committed to ending extreme
poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Agriculture and food
systems play a central role in meeting these goals.
We know that Africa will be home to 2 billion people by 2050; over
the same period, the number of Kenyans will grow to 85 million.
Kenya’s food production will therefore need to grow by 75% by 2030
to keep up with the additional food demand. On the supply side, Africa’s agriculture and food
business are projected to grow to 1 trillion dollars by 2030. Accounting for input supply,
logistics, processing, packaging, trade, retail and other off-farm activities within value chains,
agriculture remains the largest employer in Africa, with several emerging jobs and
entrepreneurship opportunities for engaging technologically savvy youth. Indeed, these trends
offer a unique opportunity to create high-quality jobs all along the agri-food system, spur
farmer-centered technological innovation, and enhance agricultural productivity.
In Kenya, agriculture is the main contributor to the attainment of two of the pillars of the
Government’s Big 4 Agenda – manufacturing and food and nutrition security. The World Bank
is currently supporting Kenya’s food and nutrition security agenda through the following
projects: Climate Smart Agriculture (US$250 million), the National Agricultural Rural Inclusive
Growth (US$200 million), the Regional Pastoral and Livelihoods Resilience (US$77 million), and
two large-scale irrigation projects.
Innovation in agriculture is, without doubt, an important tool to tackle food security, and raise
overall productivity and profitability in the agriculture sector. The range of agri-tech
innovations that can be employed to transform Kenya’s agriculture is both exciting and
endless. This includes weather data analytics, drones and satellites-based remote sensing and
imagery, precision agriculture, Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications utilizing sensors for soil,
water, plant and animal diseases, and fintech solutions for farmers, among many others. Low-
cost digital technology represents a vast untapped potential for farmers, investors, and
entrepreneurs in Africa.
Over the next two days, you will actively engage with each other on practical and actionable
solutions to scale up innovations that have the potential to transform Kenyan agriculture and
the challenges faced by farmers. However, developing agri-tech innovations is not enough.
Firstly, farmers need to be engaged and trained on how to effectively adopt them. Secondly,
investors need to back the innovators to scale up. Lastly, governments need to create the
policy environment and infrastructure that will encourage the large-scale use of these
disruptive innovations.
Reaching one million farmers in the next 10 years with disruptive agri-tech innovations seems
ambitious, but I have confidence that the innovators and all actors in this conference will
provide useful insights on how to attain these targets. On behalf of the World Bank Group, I
would like to congratulate all the finalists of the innovation challenge. Their business ideas and
plans will contribute to the transformation of Kenya’s agriculture, towards improved incomes
for farmers, food security and job creation.
Let me thank the Government of Kenya, the Korea-World Bank Group Partnership Facility,
Kuza Biashara, Dalberg and many others who made this Disruptive Agricultural Technology
Challenge and Conference possible.
Key Points Discussed During the Welcome Remarks
Description
The Conference opened with remarks by senior leadership from the World Bank Group, United
Nations, African Development Bank, and Kuza. The Principle Secretary, Fisheries delivered the
inaugural Address, which was followed by a speech delivered on behalf of the Chairman of the
Council of Governors, and comments made by the Principle Secretary, State Department for
Agriculture Research.
Speakers
Key points discussed
Paolo Belli, Program Leader, Africa, World Bank Group
Agriculture and food systems play a central role in meeting the World Bank Groups goals
of ending poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Africa will be home to 2 billion people
by 2050; over the same period, the number of Kenyans will grow to 85 million. Kenya’s food
production will therefore need to grow by 75% by 2030 to keep up with the additional food
demand. On the supply side, Africa’s agriculture and food business are projected to grow to 1
trillion dollars by 2030. In Kenya, agriculture is the main contributor to the attainment of two
Micheni Ntiba, Principal
Secretary - Fisheries,
Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,
Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)
Hamadi Boga Principal
Secretary, Agricultural Research , Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,
Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)
Mary Nzomo County
Executive Committee,
Representing the Council of
Governors
Sidharth Chatteree
United Nations Resident
Coordinator
Edson Mpyisi Chief Financial Economist and Co-ordinator Enable Youth Programme,
African Development
Bank
Sriram Bharatam Founder &
Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara
Limited
Paolo Belli Program
Leader, Africa, World Bank
Group
of the pillars of the Government’s Big 4 Agenda – manufacturing and food and nutrition
security.
Innovation in agriculture is an important tool to tackle food insecurity and raise overall
productivity and profitability in the agriculture sector. Low-cost digital technology
represents a vast untapped potential for farmers, investors, and entrepreneurs in Africa.
However, developing agri-tech innovations is not enough. Firstly, farmers need to be engaged
and trained on how to effectively adopt them. Secondly, investors need to back the innovators
to scale up. Lastly, governments need to create the policy environment and infrastructure that
will encourage the large-scale use of these disruptive innovations.
Sidharth Chatterjee, United Nations Resident Coordinator
The timing of this conference is crucial because there is strong political weight and push
from the government behind the agriculture transformation agenda. The right public
policies and leadership are in place to drive transformation in the sector. County governors
are not just grappling with the challenges of food insecurity but are transforming their counties
into food surplus areas.
Through the convergence of partnerships and knowledge we can transform the space.
We cannot achieve scalable results for the Sustainable Development Goals without the might,
innovation, and technology of the private sector. The United Nations working together with
the World Bank, civil society, the private sector, and the Kenyan government can drive these
results. Kenya has an opportunity to set the blueprint for what agribusiness and scale will look
like in Africa.
Edson Mypisi, Chief Financial Economist and Co-ordinator Enable Youth Programme, African
Development Bank
Three elements - the youth, agriculture, and ICT – must be addressed to move the
agriculture agenda forward and drive economic activity in Africa. Since over 70% of the
population in Africa is under 35 years, the youth need to be put at the center of all policies,
programs, and strategies introduced. Meanwhile, there is a huge productivity gap in
agriculture, as highlighted by the $35 billion annual food imports in Africa that needs to be
closed.
Advances in technology offer endless opportunities to change the business models in
the agriculture sector. Connectivity and internet utilization are very important in the space.
During an African Development Bank value chain project in Gabon, youth leaders commented
that they would only move from the city to rural areas to enter the agriculture space if there is
internet connectivity.
Sriram Bharatam, Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited
There is enough space for all players in the ecosystem to collaborate. There is a lot of
room for everyone to contribute their own respective expertise. Kuza has impacted more than
4.2 million people and created 150,000 new jobs in Kenya over 4 years. Kuza has also created
a backpack kit that is packaged with technological solutions, which enables people to go into
communities to service farmers. Through partnerships and mentoring of new entrepreneurs,
Kuza aims to expand its reach of smallholder farmers in Kenya.
Micheni Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and
Irrigation (MoALFI)
Agricultural produce is a lot more than just for consumption. It is also a source of raw
material for trade, security, health, supporting manufacturing industries, and driving economic
activity.
Data and information are very important for the agricultural sector and need to be
captured and managed at all levels of government. The absence of good data leads to
reduced output and other challenges in the sector. With new technology, the government will
be able to capture data accurately and in real-time to move the industry forward.
Mary Nzomo, County Executive Committee, Representing the Council of Governors
Counties’ governments are key to catalyzing agriculture transformation and need to be
included in every step of the transformation process. Implementation of policies and strategies
take place at the county level which makes buy-in at this level critical for success. All
stakeholders in the ecosystem should therefore visit the counties.
The World Bank Group should develop a partnership agreement with the Council of
Governors. This would ensure that the scalable ideas and technologies generated from the
Challenge are implemented and showcased to other counties.
Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary, Agricultural Research, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,
Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)
All stakeholders need to support smallholder farmers and provide them with an
ecosystem that enables them to increase their income. The government aims to utilize
smart solutions for the fertilizer and seed subsidy program in order to reach the right farmers
with the right inputs. Integrating technology within the program will make it more transparent
and efficient.
The lack of information collection and data analytics is a major challenge in the sector.
Volumes of data have been generated from different government initiative. However, due to
fragmentation in industry, such data have not been combined and collectively assessed. There
is high demand for data to be concentrated and analyzed to facilitate informed decision-
making by the government. For example, in order to make the right interventions to mitigate
the current drought experienced by communities in the north of Kenya, the government needs
to collect data. Overall, the ecosystem as a whole needs to collaborate and consolidate data
to create synergies.
Key Learnings from Knowledge Sessions
Background of DAT Challenge and Conference - Vision of One Million Farmer
Initiative
Description
The session outlined the vision of the One Million Farmer Initiative, which aims to provide
solutions to the challenges faced by farmers by connecting them to a digital platform. The
platform will bring together different disruptive technology innovators to offer an end-to-end
platform solution keeping farmers’ challenges as a focal point. The Ministry of Agriculture,
Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI) of Kenya, along with the World Bank Group and
the Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility are the key partners of the initiative.
Key points discussed
The World Bank is supporting two agricultural programs in Kenya; The National
Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project and The Climate Smart Project. The total
investment in these projects is USD 450 million and they have been rolled out in 45 counties
across Kenya; Nairobi and Mombasa counties are excluded as the scope of agricultural
activities in these areas is limited.
Through the One Million Farmer Initiative, the World Bank aims to reach one million
Kenyan farmers through disruptive agricultural technologies. By leveraging the platform,
innovators can scale up their businesses and provide products and services to farmers through
access to networking opportunities, knowledge and learning, data analytics services,
evaluation and learning, incubation services and financing and investment. It is the vision of
the World Bank to have the largest agri-tech incubator in Africa based in Nairobi. The World
Bank will therefore work with the government to ensure there exists a conducive environment
for growth of agri-techs. This should ultimately lead to significant increases in agricultural
productivity throughout the country.
Dr. Parmesh Shah
Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods and Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank
Group
DATs’ Role in the Kenyan context
Description
CTA, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation, in partnership with Dalberg
Advisors, presented the findings from their most recent study on Digitalization for Agriculture.
The study highlights the role digital agri-tech companies play in increasing profitability and
productivity of smallholder farmers by allowing them to leverage digital solutions in the
Kenyan context.
Key points discussed
CTA, in partnership with Dalberg has been working on a project to assess the digital
agricultural ecosystem in Africa with a focus on six countries including Kenya. The project
focus is to find out ways through which DATs can scale sustainably. A thorough analysis of the
sector will provide data and specific recommendations that can move the sector forward. A
focus on Kenya is important as it has the highest penetration of digital agri-tech solutions in
Africa. This is largely driven by high levels of mobile phone penetration.
Preliminary findings show that approximately 370 digital agri-tech innovators are
currently active in Africa with advisory services being the most prominent digital agri-
tech services. In Sub Saharan Africa, 33 million smallholder farmers are registered for these
services. However, this number is to be taken cautiously as there are duplications and
registration does not imply use and impact. Only 33% of smallholder farmers are currently
engaged (active users) and it is therefore necessary to find a way to address the gap between
registration and use. Furthermore, only 24% of the registered farmers are women yet around
50% of all smallholder farmers in Africa are women.
Collaboration between different ecosystem actors including government, investors, and
innovators is critical to ensure agri-techs scale sustainably. The project aims to come up
with recommendations on some of the areas that require collaboration as it shall highlight the
current state, challenges, and opportunities for the agri-tech sector.
Michael Hailu,
Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and
Rural Cooperation (CTA)
Michael Tsan,
Partner and Global Lead of ICT Practice, Dalberg
Knowledge Panel 1: Agricultural Productivity
Description
Panelists discussed the different types of digital solutions in the market that facilitate the
delivery of extension services, climate smart agriculture advisory, input services, mechanization
services, and data information services directly to farmers. The panelist also discussed the
impact that is derived from equipping farmers with such knowledge and education.
Panelists
Key points discussed
Many of the productivity challenges that farmers face can be solved by analog solutions.
Analog solutions lay down the foundation to build digital technologies. It is important to have
the analog elements working well for farmers across the five key services - organization,
productivity, finance, marketing, and innovation - and harness digital tools to drive and scale
these. So far, the analog-side of agriculture has only produced annual single-digit productivity
growth for major crops. Harnessing digitalization is likely to provide enough disruption to lead
to double-digit growth.
Farmers need to shift their mindset. Currently across the value chains, many smallholder
farmers do not see their operations as a business. Until they change that mindset it will be very
difficult to get uptake of technologies and best practices. Improving financial literacy amongst
smallholders can contribute to overcoming this and enable them to make better decisions to
improve productivity.
There would be a significant increase in adoption amongst farmers if tailored
productivity innovations are provided for free. Currently, many large farms are utilizing
precision technology and other innovations because they see its value and they can afford it.
In contrast, there is low uptake from smallholder farmers because they cannot afford the
services. To address this, business models need to be continuously tested to ensure that their
offerings are affordable and accessible to smallholder farmers. Businesses can work with
development partners and NGOs to test this, and may require a subsidy to absorb the cost of
providing free services. Similarly, technologies can be used to drive service aggregation so that
Janalize Van
Buuren
East and
Central Africa
Divisional
Sales
Manager,
John Deere
John Logan
Country
Director –
Kenya,
TechnoServe
Shaun Ferris
Director of
Agriculture
and
Livelihoods
Program,
Catholic
Relief
Services
Tania
Lozansky
Global Head
of Advisory,
Manufacturin
g
Agribusiness
and Services,
IFC
Benjamin
Kwasi Addom
Team Leader –
ICTs for
Agriculture,
CTA
Boniface
Akuku,
Director of
ICT,
KALRO
farmers have access to more services at lower price points. In the sector, technology should
be harnessed to create inclusivity and not drive inequity.
The government needs better data to aid the scale up of services and improve
productivity in the sector. It will be very hard to achieve this without good data. For instance,
the public sector needs quality information on soil and weather systems, which have a direct
effect on farmer yields. Overall, there is a need for governments to stop being reactive to issues
in the sector and utilize data to become proactive and predict issues in advance.
Knowledge Panel 2: Market Linkages
Description
This panel explored the various disruptive agri-tech solutions that connect Kenyan farmers
willing to sell their produce, to buyers both in local and international markets. Bridging the
gap between buyer and seller is vital to fostering and increasing the economic activity and the
productivity of the agriculture sector, especially given the context where farmers currently
struggle to reach the market.
Panelists
Key points discussed
Over 80% of smallholder farmers in Kenya sell their post-harvest produce. They sell to
both the formal and informal markets regardless of volumes. Market linkages to buyers in the
formal agricultural value chain by firms like Twiga and Tulaa as well as informal agricultural
value chains by Olam are crucial for the livelihoods of the smallholder farmers.
Kenyan farmers have for a long time experienced various challenges when it comes to
access to markets. Some of the most identifiable challenges have been poor infrastructure as
most farmers are in rural areas, unreliable middlemen when selling produce, lack of market
information, high transaction costs for access, lack of relevant processing facilities, seasonality
in production, inefficiencies in produce collection and aggregation, challenges in compliance
to safety and quality standards, lack of economies of scale, and unpredictable market.
Different challenges will call for different solutions. Various players in the agricultural
ecosystem are developing different solutions to eradicate some of the challenges. Safaricom
is partnering with agri-tech incubators through the DigiFarm platform to connect smallholder
famers to markets. Through its large customer base, its partners can now easily reach farmers
on the platform. Meanwhile, the Rockefeller Foundation, through the YieldWise Project is
providing farmers with solutions to their most pressing issues. The project is helping farmers
in the mango value chain in Kenya find a solution to losses caused by fruit flies. The foundation
has a goal to open the export market for farmers in Kenya through a partnership with Kenya
Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) to improve quality of produce and limit post-
Castro
Antwi-
Dandso Director of
Sales and
Marketing, ESOKO
Mary
Nzomo CEC,
Trans Nzoia
County
Betty
Kibaara,
Associate
Director,
Rockefeller
Foundation,
Africa
Region
Office
Benjamin
Makai,
Senior
Manager,
Technology
for
Development,
Safaricom
Mikael L.
Clason
Höök,
Mastercard
Foundation
Rural and
Agricultural
Finance
Learning
Sidhartha
Samal General
Manager, OLAM
harvest loss. For ESOKO and Olam, providing farmers with transparency in pricing of their
commodities is important. The firms are leveraging the prevalence of mobile technology to
optimize market linkages for farmers.
In addressing the challenge of unreliable middlemen, it is critical to remember they play
a very important role in the value chain given poor infrastructure in farming zones in
Kenya. Some strategies like contract farming, selling directly to the processors, ensuring
transparency in pricing and reducing the cost of production to create competitive markets can
go a long way to reduce challenges of unreliable middlemen. However, they cannot be entirely
eliminated from the value chain.
Generally, most new innovations across the value chain provide an array of bundled
services under one platform. Market linkages are bundled with advisory services as well as
data analytics services. Bundling of these services has reduced the time and expenses used by
the farmer in accessing innovative solutions.
Knowledge Panel 3: Farmer Financial Inclusion
Description
Panelists discussed digital innovations that give farmers access to various affordable financial
products. They also discussed the strides and gaps in access to credit, savings, insurance and
payment services that have been tailored to serve the needs of smallholder farmers.
Panelists
Key points discussed
Farmer cooperatives (SACCOs) have vast amounts of untapped data on farmers.
Innovators can use the data generated by SACCOs to build credit profiles for farmers. For
instance, a model that is working for AGRA involves creating and integrating digital IT
platforms for SACCOs with M-pesa wallet. This enables farmers to apply for a loan and receive
it on their phone. Financial institutions that do not want to deal with the smallholder farmers
directly can provide wholesale financing to the SACCOs and SACCOs can lend to smallholders
through their channels.
Companies must take a farmer-centric approach in creating relevant products and
services to smallholder farmers. Currently, many large financial and non-financial companies
with digital platform do not know how to tailor their offering to smallholder farmers. Since
agriculture is a large market - with 70% of the working population in the sector - these
companies want to have a presence. To overcome this, they should listen to the farmers first,
identify their major pain-points, and then design their financial offerings accordingly.
A major financial pain-point for farmers is that they need cash immediately after a
harvest. Many farmers wait a long time before they receive payment from buyers. Some
buyers take advantage of the farmers immediate cash need and negotiate prices drastically
below market value. As a result, many farmers lose out on profitability. Technology platforms
can be used to track successful farm product deliveries and the quantities delivered to create
a profile on the farmer. In return, banks and other financial institutions can provide credit to
farmers to relieve them of their immediate post-harvest cash needs.
Leesa Shrader
AgriFin
Accelerate
Program
Director,
Mercy
Corps/AFA
Lucas Meso
Managing
Director,
Agricultural
Finance
Corporation
(AFC)
Reuben
Gicheha
Program
Officer –
Financial
Inclusion,
AGRA
Esther Kasalu-
Coffin,
Country
Director,
International
Fund for
Agricultural
Development
(IFAD)
It is important to note though that many farmers are nervous to take on debt. One
reasons for this is that they lack a clear understanding of the financial-side of their business.
Most farmers just want a savings product that smoothens their cash flow and would rather use
their own savings than take on loans. Studies also show that farmers would prefer to solve
issues in their operations such as climate change and pest disease to increase yield, before
turning to debt.
Knowledge Panel 4: Data Analytics and Intelligence
Description
Panelists discussed data sourcing, curation, data analytics and data insights as well as different
types of datasets such as farmer registry data/farmer profiles, field sensors data providing data
on soil, agronomy data from field trials, weather and climate data, remote sensing data, crop
surveillance data, pest and disease surveillance data. New innovations in hardware and
software agri-tech such as remote sensing, drones, machine learning, blockchain, AI and their
impact on the quality and quantity of data available to farmers were also discussed. In addition,
the panel explored how these new data sources can be used to improve the lives of smallholder
farmers.
Panelists
Key points discussed
It is critical for farmers to have high quality, accessible and timely data on their farms.
To achieve this, there is a need to focus on specific farmer issues to tailor products and services
to their needs. This will ensure they make timely decisions on when, how and what to plant for
maximum yields and income.
The agricultural data ecosystem in Kenya is faced by various challenges. There has been
lack of integration of ground-truth data into decision making, lack of high-quality primary data
that is in granular form, information asymmetry, and difficulty in creating trust for usage of
data. In addition to that, there is a poor balance between amount of historical data and real
time data available. Historical data is useful for modelling but cannot be used to provide real-
time insights to farmers.
The One Million Farmer Initiative will help address some of these challenges. The World
Bank has developed a partnership with International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and
other key stakeholders to ensure they capture, analyze, and disseminate information to
farmers. In addition to that, the AgObservatory team from the World Bank in collaboration
with Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) will provide farmers with
Boniface
Akuku Director of
ICT, KALRO
Christophe
Bocquet Senior Data
Scientist &
Agritech
Lead, Dalberg
Data
Insights
Debisi
Araba Director,
International
Center for
Tropical
Agriculture
(CIAT)
Dr. Kala
Fleming Co-Founder
& Director, Diaspora AI
Dr. Ladisy
Komba
Chengula Lead
Agricultural
Economist –
Agriculture
Global
Practice, World Bank
Stewart
Collis Senior
Program
Officer –
Digital
Agriculture
Solutions, Gates
Foundation
access to a big data platform of all the counties in Kenya except for Mombasa and Nairobi.
The platform will provide agricultural data insights to the various agricultural sector
stakeholders ranging from farmers, policy makers, donors as well as private sector
organizations.
Investment Roundtable
Description
Panelist discussed issues around data, legislative environment, commercial viability, and risk
from the perspective of Development Finance Institutions, donors, and private investors – that
are preventing capital flows from entering the agriculture sector. In addition, the panel
discussed actionable solutions that can be leveraged by ecosystem players in order to unlock
systematic investments at scale into the sector.
Panelists
Key points discussed
Large amounts of grants and donor capital in the agriculture sector can be a deterrent
for private/commercial investors. Due to efforts to reduce poverty and drive economic
growth in the sector, many grants have been distributed to prop up businesses. Such
businesses are not sustainable and considered a risk from the perspective of investors. As a
result, when evaluating investment options in the agriculture sector, investors assess whether
the underlying business model can survive long-term without donor capital. Those that can
are deemed to be worthy investments.
Blended finance options are helping to tackle the perceived riskiness of investing in the
agriculture sector. Public-private partnerships have been an effective finance option for de-
risking agriculture investments. By combining donor money with that of commercial
institutions, investors are more willing to include digital agriculture investments under their
portfolio that they would otherwise not.
Development partners can play a role in investing in early stage businesses. This is
important as there is a lack of seed capital available to business in Africa, which limits business
growth. At early stages in the business lifecycle, companies tend to raise capital from family
and friends to get their business going. However, in Africa there is a lack of wealth amongst
such groups which makes it difficult for businesses to secure funding. As a result, when raising
rounds from institutional investors, they are perceived as a risk. Institutions such as IFC are
overcoming this by investing in venture capital and private equity funds to enable them to
uptake these investments.
Anup Jagwani
Principal
Investment
Officer,
International
Finance
Corporation
(IFC)
Olukemi Dolly
Afun-Ogidan
Principal
Agribusiness
Officer,
African
Development
Bank
Sandeep
Khapre
CEO,
Binder Dijker
Otte (BDO)
Shudhan Kohli
Co-Founder and
CEO, Grey
Elephant
Ventures
Martine Jansen
Manager Data-
Driven
Innovation,
Rabobank
Foundation
Policies for Disruptive Agriculture Technology
Description
The objective of this panel was to get insights from all the key players of the ecosystem on
how to create an enabling policy environment for DATs to scale-up. The panellists discussed
the key policy constraints, priority areas for policy making as well as the general changes that
should be made to the policy making process in Kenya to ensure that the agricultural sector
has a conducive policy environment to encourage scale-up of DATs.
Panelists
Key points discussed
The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation has a vision to make
Kenya a food secure country by encouraging an innovative, commercially aware, and
competitive agricultural sector. This has led to the establishment of the Agricultural Sector
Transformation and Growth Strategy by the Ministry. To support that, the president of Kenya,
His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta has committed himself to achieving 100% food and nutrition
security by 2022 under the Big 4 Agenda.
Several key policy constraints are holding Kenya back from harnessing the power of
DATs. There lacks a concise policy on collaboration, sharing, and digitization of data by key
agricultural sector players. Most agricultural departments especially in the government have
their records on paper which makes sharing of information resources with other stakeholders
very challenging. In addition, there is an increasing need on legislation of policies that can
solve issues of data privacy and ownership in Kenya.
It is critical to learn how to make policies that can adapt to the ever-changing
innovations in technology. One way of doing this would be making sure that ICT is at the
initiation of all government projects and hence all records are digitized. Furthermore, the
government should consider legislating collaboration among the various stakeholders in the
Prof. Hamadi
Boga, Principal
Secretary,
Ministry of
Agriculture,
Livestock,
Fisheries and
Irrigation
(MoALFI)
Andrew Karlyn,
Strategic &
Learning Lead,
AgriFin
Accelerate at
Mercy Corps
Mulat Demeke
Desta, Senior Policy
Officer, Food and
Agriculture
Organization
(FAO)
Philip Thigo,
Technical Advisor
- Data &
Innovation,
Office of the
Deputy President
Prof. Jerome
Ochieng,
Principal
Secretary,
Ministry of
Information,
Communication,
and Technology
(ICT) –
represented by
Mr Timothy Were
agricultural sector when it comes to sharing information/data. Involving the private sector and
DAT entrepreneurs in the policy making process would go a long way in ensuring policies can
last and adapt to new technologies. Legislation should also be elaborate, to ensure that issues
of data ownership and privacy are tackled.
Ignite Talk: Harnessing the Power of Communities
Key points discussed
People at the base of the pyramid especially smallholder farmers, women and the youth
are equally engaged when it comes to the need for information. With everyone becoming
time poor, it is critical to find innovative ways to engage the people at the base of the pyramid.
Kuza Biashara has found new innovative ways to tackle this challenge. Some of their innovative
solutions include providing bite time learning through 2-3-minute videos which can be
uploaded on social media. This includes more than 40 million of video content for farmers in
different languages. Kuza also provides micro-learning, micro-distribution and micro-
mentoring to smallholders farmers in partnership with agencies like Syngenta Foundation.
One prevalent model to reach rural farmers is the Agripreneur model. The Kuza team uses
the process of selection, training, launching, mentoring and farmer engagement to grow
businesses. Their team goes from village to village to identify rural entrepreneurs, equip them
with the necessary skills for entrepreneurship, incubate them and support their businesses.
Some of the services they offer through this model are crop advisory and access to credit.
Sriram Bharatam,
Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited
Ignite Talk: Disruptive Technology as Game-changers for Small-scale
Agribusinesses
Key points discussed
To take advantage of the growth in export markets globally, the Kenyan agriculture
industry needs massive investment and upgrade. There has been a 250% growth in demand
for avocados in the past few years and 70% growth in demand for the export market for
bananas, but growth in production in Kenya has been flatlining. Investment is needed to
strengthen infrastructure and have more people on the ground to boost production.
Upgrading the sector requires both hardware and software-based solutions.
Effectively managing cold-chain storage is important in being competitive in the export
and domestic market. Retaining product quality during the route-to-market, facilitates repeat
purchases and increases the likelihood of income growth. InspiraFarms addresses this directly
by supplying energy-efficient, solar-powered refrigerators, cold rooms, and modular
packhouses.
Tim Chambers Co-founder & Managing Director and founder, InspiraFarms
Ignite Talk: Revolutionizing the Use of Data for Policymaking (The Case of
Agriculture Observatory in Kenya)
Key points discussed
The over-arching role of the AgObservatory in Kenya is to provide agricultural
intelligence for The World Bank and its partners. One of the goals of the Observatory is
tracking food and feed systems; both in the private sector, of which the information is
proprietary; and the public sector, of which the information is open/free access. The
Observatory also provides advanced indices and localized and timely insight for farmers to
ensure maximum production.
The Observatory partners with aWhere to process huge volumes of data. The data can be
obtained from both ground stations and satellites within a short period of time and processing
is done in real-time, providing agricultural ecosystem players with critical real-time data for
informing their decisions. Big data techniques such as machine learning algorithms are applied
to process the data.
In Kenya, the Observatory is working with KALRO to provide agronomical near real-time
insights for Kenyans. Through the KALRO website/app, farmers can access weather
information for any part of Kenya to help guide their farming decisions.
Dr. Erick C.M. Fernandes, Global Lead - Technology, Innovation, & Climate-Smart Agriculture, The World Bank Group
Closing Remarks
Simeon Kacou Ehui, Director, The World Bank Group
The Conference has highlighted key innovative agri-tech solutions that are tackling the
challenges of low productivity, constrained financial and market access and data
deficient decision making. The World Bank will launch the One Million Farmer Initiative in
Kenya and bring together the first cohort under the platform to reach one million smallholder
farmers. The Bank will also host similar Challenges in other African countries.
In line with the Digital Moonshot target for Africa, the World Bank has a vision of the
future Kenyan smallholder farmers. Before the planting season, they can use their mobile
phones to access real-time data on their farms, tailored farm advisory services, and receive
credit in their mobile wallet. During the planting season they can order tractors, mechanization
tools, and farm inputs on-demand. During the harvesting season, they can harvest at optimal
times receiving guaranteed prices on e-platforms and utilize energy-efficient storage on the
route-to-market. It is the hope that such a future will be realized through the One Million
Farmer Initiative.
Dina Umali-Deininger, Practice Manager, The World Bank Group
The World Bank recently launched a “Digital Moonshot" strategy. Through this strategy,
exceptional and coordinated efforts are being made to ensure that all Africans have universal
and affordable access to ICTs by no later than 2030. In Africa, President Kenyatta has
volunteered to be the first to sign up to the Digital Moonshot to support the Big 4 Agenda;
this means every farmer in Kenya will be digitally enabled by 2030. To achieve this, the
Conference and the One Million Farmer Initiative is the start to that, and the World Bank is
committed to helping Kenya achieve its goal.
Kenya is on a path to be a world leader in agri-tech. However, that will require collaboration
between the various players in the sector: government, public and private sector both across
Simeon Kacou
Ehui, Director,
The World Bank
Group
Dina Umali-
Deininger,
Practice
Manager, The
World Bank
Group
Prof. Micheni J.
Ntiba, Principal
Secretary -
Fisheries,
Ministry of
Agriculture,
Livestock,
Fisheries and
Irrigation
(MoALFI)
Dr. Parmesh
Shah, Global Lead for
Rural Livelihoods
& Agricultural
Jobs, The World
Bank Group
Mary Nzomo County Executive
Committee, Trans Nzoia
County
and within the sectors. The Ministry of Agriculture will have to work with DAT entrepreneurs
and other ecosystem players to ensure there is an enabling environment for entrepreneurship.
On the other hand, entrepreneurs will have to work with each other to leverage their strengths,
and financiers will have to work with innovators to help them scale up their technologies. If
this is achieved, then Kenya will easily have a thriving agricultural sector.
Dr. Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group
Both Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 members will be part of the One Million Farmer Initiative
by the World Bank. The initiative will have an agri-tech incubator in Kenya which will be the
largest incubator for DATs in Africa. The One Million Farmer Initiative will reach the farmers
under the two World Bank projects currently in Kenya through a digitally enabled platform. All
members on the platform will receive minimum incubation services and networking
opportunities. The Initiative will bring together a network of members from Africa and around
the globe and financing options will be discussed between the individual platform members
and the World Bank team. In the next three months following the conference, all Platform
members will be approached by the World Bank to develop a value proposition of how they
will work together to impact Kenyan farmers.
Mary Nzomo, County Executive Committees (CECs), Trans Nzoia County
County Executive Committees (CECs) are driving agriculture in the country. We have 47
CECs and they have a caucus which holds periodic meetings to discuss the way forward on the
state of the agriculture in the counties and the country at large. They are committed to work
with the World Bank to implement agricultural projects in the counties.
The vision of the counties is aligned with the Big 4 Agenda and both levels of
government are committed to providing an enabling environment for DATs. The counties
are looking up to the national government to create policies and are ready to implement them
for the counties. The promise of the counties is that they are ready to adopt DATs in their
implementation of agriculture strategy and support the national government in developing
the best environment for DATs. The two levels of government are not in competition and are
going to work together to reach farmers.
Prof. Micheni J. Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries
and Irrigation (MoALFI)
We are getting a solution to the many challenges of the Kenyan farmer through DATs.
The conference has been a first step towards achieving one goal in the Big 4 Agenda; food
security. The government and all other key stakeholders need to make a commitment that the
journey will not collapse and that all ideas discussed at the Conference will be implemented.
The national government is ready to work with the counties. The CECs are welcomed to
ensure both levels of government work together to have food security in the country. After
the Conference, there will be need to prepare an action plan that is shared by both levels of
government and the World Bank to ensure smallholder farmers are uplifted. The national
government called on the CECs to start developing their action plan with a specific timeline
for the agricultural sector.
DAT Challenge
Challenge Overview
The One Million Farmer Initiative in Kenya will work with multiple cohorts of 10-15 agri-
tech innovators over three years. The first cohort of DAT innovators was selected through a
pitch challenge competition during the DAT Innovation Knowledge and Challenge Conference
on April 5-6th, 2019. Future challenge rounds will invite additional applicants in 2020 and 2021.
The DAT innovators selected in the first cohort will receive performance-based awards
to support their scale-up and integration into the One Million Farmer Initiative. Equally
important, the selected innovators will receive in-kind support in the form of access to
knowledge, shared ecosystem and data services, and access to an expanded network of
partners including private investors, funders, agribusinesses, technical and business model
expert mentors, and government leaders. Those not selected as awardees (second cohort)
during the Challenge will still receive program support (training, mentorship, and connections
to networks; and will be eligible for joining the One Million Farmer Initiative program as full
partners if they meet eligibility criteria over time.
Overall, twenty-three DAT innovators pitched during the first DAT Challenge on April 5-6th,
2019. The innovator pitches were judged on their product/service quality, potential for scale-
up, impact potential, business model sustainability, and their ability/willingness to contribute
as partners to the DAT ecosystem generally and to the One Million Farmer Initiative platform.
Based on the results of the challenge, the 23 DATs were divided into two cohorts:
• ‘First Cohort of Innovators’ – These were the top ranked DAT pitches, who were
considered ready to join the platform. From the World Bank’s end, they will:
o Receive a performance-based grant when they achieve certain milestones
o Receive non-financial assistance in the form of incubation and mentorship
support, as well as connection to investors, agribusiness, and technical experts
o Be deployed directly within the World Bank One Million Farmer Initiative
project and have the chance to work closely with the Kenyan government
• ‘Second Cohort of Innovators’ – These were the top remaining DAT pitch participants.
They will:
o Receive non-financial assistance, including mentorship and coaching to help
them achieve the level needed to work directly with the World Bank on the One
Million Farmer Initiative
o Have the option to join the ‘First Cohort of Innovators’ once deemed ready
without going through another Challenge round
Thus, the conference lay the foundations for innovations to scale up in Kenya by connecting a
million Kenyan farmers to disruptive agricultural technologies through a platform.
Challenge Process
The DATs selected for pitching on the day of the Challenge had been through a rigorous
shortlisting process. This process was competitive as well as transparent. There were three
stages of the selection process:
Ecosystem players convening workshop: All DATs in Kenya had access to an open invitation
to the workshop in June 2018. Some of the Challengers attended the workshop, which brought
together various players in the agri-tech sector in Kenya and lay a foundation for the DATs
Challenge and Conference.
Online application: All DATs in Kenya had access to an online application. The deadline to
apply was 26th March. World Bank received 37 submissions by the deadline.
The DATs online applications were reviewed based on the following criteria:
• They are serving farmers in Kenya (or have clear intention to enter Kenya, but are
already serving farmers elsewhere)
• Have commercial orientation, or, at the very least, earned revenue elements in their
models or proven track record of donor and government support if they are non-
profits
• They are in validation/scaling stage of their business, not early stage pilots
• They clearly address one of the four 2019 DAT challenge themes
• They combine digital technologies, data analytics and innovations, IoT or innovative
business models and digital and analog outreach
• They are crop or commodity specific, or have track record delivering value for specific
crop value chains, except for financial inclusion track that could be more general
The World Bank team reviewed all 37 DAT submissions with an eye on these criteria and
shortlisted 25, with particular focus on three binding criteria – (i) a minimum scale of 3000
farmers, (ii) successful pilot or proof of concept (iii) technology-enabled disruption potential.
These 25 DAT submissions were invited to participate in a pitch bootcamp.
Pitch bootcamp: 24 out of the 25 invited DATs participated in the bootcamp. This was a 2-
day bootcamp (28/29 March), where the World Bank Group shared its vision of One Million
Farmer Initiative and DATs prepared their presentation for the day of the Challenge and
practiced their pitches. The DATs got feedback and support to structure their pitch towards
aligning with the One Million Farmer Initiative platform thinking.
Additional individual coaching sessions: Seven out of the 24 invited DATs took part in
additional individual pitch coaching sessions. They received feedback and support on various
aspects of their pitch, including content and presentation skills. Additionally, ~15 Challenge
participants did dry runs of their presentation with Dalberg support the day prior to the
Conference.
Challenge Track Descriptions
The DAT challenge participants were aligned against four themes/tracks namely – Agricultural
Productivity, Market Linkage, Farmer Financial Inclusion, Data Analytics and Intelligence.
Theme 1 - Agricultural Productivity Challenge
Context: The average productivity of major crops in Kenya has not increased at a sufficient rate
annually. Maize productivity, for instance, has increased by 17% over the last decade resulting
in an annual increase of only about 1.7%. Relative to the need to more than double agricultural
productivity by 2030 to meet national targets, this baseline pace of growth needs very
substantial acceleration (e.g., 5-10x) in coming years. There are multiple reasons why growth
in productivity has been slow such as – increased reliance on rainfed agriculture (98%), weak
reach and uptake of advisory and extension services, lack of access to climate-smart practices,
and – critically – limited access to improved agricultural production inputs (e.g., seeds, fertilizer,
pesticides) and mechanization for production (i.e., land preparation equipment like tractors
and irrigation). To reach their full potential, farmers need to have access to the latest
technologies and actionable information.
Some relevant disruptive technologies for this track include (i) digitally enabled agriculture
advisory services for smallholder farmers, including climate smart advisory (direct-to-farmer
digital advisory services or digital advisory services intermediated via agribusiness,
government, or NGO extension agents), (ii) digitally enabled models for linking farmers to
inputs like fertilizer, seeds, etc., (iii) digitally enabled models for linking farmers to production
stage machinery (e.g., uberized, shared economy, or PAYG models for irrigation and tractor
services), and (iv) agriculture hardware innovations at the agri-energy nexus (e.g., off-grid solar
powered irrigation equipment).
There were examples of each of these types of models among the pitch challengers with all
falling in two broad categories – (i) digitally enabled advisory players and (i) digitally enabled
market linkages to agricultural inputs (including mechanization inputs).
Key impact question/objective for this track: How will the DAT approach/innovation help
ensure Kenyan farmers have achieved disruptive changes in productivity (expressed primarily as
increases in yield) by gaining access to high quality digitally enabled advice/training/insights or
digitally enabled access to critical production inputs, including mechanization technologies.
Challengers
Agrics provides agricultural
products and services on credit
to smallholder farmers to
Digital Green uses a video
approach to amplify extension
providers’ effectiveness to improve
DigiCow provides extension services to
farmers using an innovative mobile
phone solution. They provide training
Farmers Pride leverages
technology and franchising
to break down barriers that
increase production and value
chain effectiveness. Agrics sells
high quality inputs; fertilizers
and seeds and provides farmer
tailored advisory services.
farmers’ livelihoods. They partner
with existing extension officers to
provide videos with highly
localized content, human
mediators to reinforce key
messages and use near real-time
data and feedback from farmers to
inform adjustments on the content
of the videos.
through a mobile app in which farmers
can also chat and share ideas. Voice-
based training coupled with SMSs is
provided to farmers without access to
smartphones.
have limited success of
farmers. They provide a one
stop village level online
mobile app/web platform
popularly known as
DIGISHOP that ensures
access to all the necessary
inputs, services and
information farmers need.
Hello Tractor connects tractor
owners to farmers through a
digital solution. They enable
farmers to request affordable
tractor services, while providing
enhanced security to tractor
owners through remote asset
tracking and virtual monitoring.
This value also extends to banks
financing tractors and dealers
who service them.
Precision Agriculture for
Development provides low-cost
mobile agronomic advice to
farmers that is accessible, relevant,
and customized to boost yields.
Sunculture offers solar-powered
irrigation systems to smallholder
farmers and helps provide financing
for acquiring these machineries to
smallholder farmers.
Waterwatch’s Crop Disease
Alert and Tracking solution
(CDAT) is a (smart)phone
application that combines
weather data, satellite
imagery, and pictures taken
by farmers with their
smartphones (image
recognition).
Theme 2 - Market Linkages (Off-taker Market Access) Challenge
Context: While 83% of the Kenyan farm households sell part of their crop production (the rest
are subsistence farmers that consume everything they produce), the majority of Kenyan SHFs
participate in poorly structured “loose” or “semi-loose” value chains rather than in “tight”
commercial value chains that are linked to large domestic or export-oriented buyers. This
means that most Kenyan farmers struggle to find guaranteed buyers for their produce (with a
range of downstream effects on their earnings). When they do sell their produce, Kenyan
farmers struggle to secure sufficiently high prices and lose substantial value to various
intermediaries between the farm gate and the end-buyer. Fast and reliable access to markets
is critical for Kenyan farmers’ success. Obstacles to such access include asymmetric information
on production volumes and prices, perceived or actual low quality of produce (from the
perspective of high value buyers), limited knowledge of and physical access to high quality
buyers/offtakers, and timing effects (e.g., markets exist, but farmer is unable to get produce to
the market at the right time).
Disruptive technologies for this track included a wide range of digitally enabled market linkage
(i.e., off-taker market access) models that match sellers with buyers, reduce information
asymmetries, or dramatically reduce the costs for agribusiness of formalizing and managing
previously loose smallholder value chains.
Key impact question/objective for this track: Given limited SHF linkages and access to
markets, how can the DAT solution facilitate market links between produce buyers and produce
sellers along the value chain?
Challengers
Farmshine's platform helps
smallholder farmers aggregate
and sell their harvests directly
to reliable commodity
companies.
Farmster is a digital
platform that operates
over an SMS Chatbot for
farmers and a mobile
Application for local
buyers. Farmers use the
Chatbot to answer basic
questions about their
expected harvest:
location, crop, expected
quantity, and harvest
date. Buyers receive this
information through an
app and directly reach
farmers.
M-shamba is a Nairobi
based Start-up that has
been working with
farmers across East Africa
to effectively deploy
farming technologies
among smallholder
farmers using basic
mobile phones. The
innovation focuses on the
use of simple phones
commonly known as
feature phones to deliver
vital information to the
smallholder farmers even
in remote areas.
TruTrade is a social
enterprise that digitizes
value chain
transactions making
rural agricultural
markets work better for
farmers, aggregators
and buyers. TruTrade’s
service provides
farmers with reliable
routes to market and
fair prices as well as
agribusinesses and
wholesalers with
traceable produce to
meet their quality
specifications.
Tulaa is a marketplace
for smallholder farmers
in Africa. Using mobile
technology and
artificial intelligence,
Tulaa provides quality
inputs like fertilizer on
credit, tailored advice,
and access to reputable
buyers to smallholder
farmers.
Theme 3 - Farmer Financial Inclusion Challenge
Context: Financial inclusion has significantly increased in rural Kenya. However, access to
agricultural finance for small and medium farmers is still limited in Kenya. Only 10% of the
smallholder farmers have access to financial services including credit and insurance (<4% of
SHFs). A growing number of Kenyan farmers, estimated at ~30% use mobile money for
payments, but very few (<5%) consistently pay for their inputs or sell their produce via mobile
money transactions. The quantity of credit is also inadequate with only 4% of credit supply
flowing to the agriculture sector. Many factors have hampered access to financial
services. These include lack of reliable data to support agricultural lending decisions, lack of
collaterals to secure financing, the high transaction cost of accessing and delivering financial
services to rural areas, and lack of data platforms for assessing risk and delivering financial
services (e.g., high costs of traditional claims processing for agri insurance). Additionally, the
high cost of credit translates into a lack of demand for credit by farmers.
Disruptive technologies for this track included a range of fintech models. For credit and
insurance products, these DAT models typically incorporate digital channels and new types of
data (e.g., weather, soil, crop yield estimation, etc.) for identifying new customers, assessing
customer risks, developing/designing new financial products, monitoring and mitigating
portfolio risks, managing client relationships, and running other vital operations like credit
collections and insurance claims processing. The DAT solution providers are not necessarily
financial institutions themselves, many are data analytics and digitalization intermediaries that
work with financial institutions as their B2B clients to enable them to tap into new smallholder
markets, deploy new products, and reduce transaction costs and risks. In the payments and
savings space, financial inclusion DAT models typically include the use of digital payment or
digital savings accounts “agri-wallets” to improve farmer access to these vital financial services.
Key impact question/objective for this track: How can your technology help to expand
coverage of financial services to farmers, including credit, savings, insurance, and low cost
payments?
Challengers
ACRE is a service
provider that links
farmers to insurance
products so that they
can confidently invest
in their farms. ACRE
automates weather
risk modeling,
payments and
communication
through SMS and
USSD platforms,
claims calculations,
and disbursement
through mobile
money.
Arifu is a social
enterprise making it
possible for the least
served people to
access the knowledge
they need on financial
services from the
organizations they
trust on any mobile
phone. Arifu provides
both an education
technology platform
and a content
digitization service.
Cellulant has built a
blockchain based smart
contracting and customer
relationship management;
connecting them to market
and helping them sell their
goods to a diverse range of
corporate buyers. Birthed
in Nigeria and nurtured in
Liberia, this platform
(Agrikore) gives the
farmers access to financial
services and government
subsidy programs to help
reduce their costs and
increase yields.
Agri-wallet is a platform that
enables financial inclusion of all
value chain actors around
smallholder farmers.
Juhudi Kilimo is a
financial services
provider to rural
smallholder farmers and
micro-entrepreneurs
with operations in 34
locations across 24
counties in Kenya, it
operates through
Grameen model.
Theme 4 - Data Analytics and Intelligence Challenge
Context: The rapid development of data infrastructure, profusion of digital technologies, and
low-cost precision agriculture devices (ICT, Drone Aerial Surveillance, Satellite GIS, Weather
Data Analytics, Blockchain, Internet of Things) in Kenya has the potential to deliver farm-level,
geospatial, and real-time analytics to inform policies and targeted investments by
governments, agribusinesses, and various types of intermediary service providers. In many
cases, generating and accessing large scale national data sets is a costly challenge for any
individual player in the market. In other cases, even when data is affordable, it is simply not
accessible and not shareable across silos (e.g., private sector data sets that companies may
have few incentives to share with the broader ecosystem). Certain types of data have strong
public good components and rely on substantial upfront investments into data capture and
analytics infrastructure that the private sector may be unwilling to subsidize (e.g., weather data,
soil data). Finally, many Kenyan agriculture ecosystem actors lack the scarce data analytics and
big data science skills that capturing, cleaning, and analysing large agriculture and agronomy
data sets require.
Disruptive technologies that can address these challenges include new types of data collection
and data analytics players including those that focus on geospatial agronomy analytics (e.g.,
field trial, crop testing data), weather and climate data, soil data, drone surveillance data, or
models that integrate across a number of different data layers to generate insights that can
feed into various downstream use cases including advisory services, macro agri intelligence,
and financial inclusion models.
The DAT challenge participants covered several of these models including, most notably, the
sourcing and analytics of geospatial satellite and drone data, as well as weather and soil data
analytics.
Key impact question/objective for this track: How can your DAT innovation enable the large-
scale collection, analysis, visualization and deployment of high-resolution, high-frequency, and
low-cost agricultural data by public and private entities to enhance sector intelligence and
farmer services?
Challengers
Agrocares offers a unique
operating system
combining agronomic
knowledge (in a smart
phone) application,
inhouse developed sensor
technology, databases for
soil, feed and leaf and deep
learning algorithms.
Astral Aerial is a drone
operator. Offers up to date,
problem-specific data to
farmers using drones (a
drone covers 1000 acres per
flight, with sensors to detect
crop health at an affordable
price).
Capture Solutions
enables digital
payment and
advances to small
scale farmers
through a fully
traceable supply
chain with an easy
to use solution.
Oakar’s solution package offers
farmers and other stakeholders
access the latest knowledge,
training, practices, data and
mechanization best suited for
them. Oakar’s Analytics platform
incorporates dynamic datasets
that can provide market
information and facilitate easy
links between producers and
markets.
UjuziKilimo provides
a simple and fast
way for smallholder
farmers to monitor
soil fertility.
UjuziKilimo’s
proprietary Sensor
technology SoilPal is
a GPS and internet
enabled device with
sensors that is used
in farms to monitor
the levels of macro
nutrients, weather,
soil pH and moisture
content which
directs water, lime
and fertilizer
nutrient application
rates based on local
requirements.
Jury Composition and Judging Criteria
The Jury: The Challenge was judged by a 5-member jury on the first day of the conference
(April 5th) and a 5-member jury on the second day of the conference (April 6th).
The jury members included:
DAY 1 (April 5Th)
Day 2 (April 6Th)
The World Bank team, in collaboration with Dalberg and discussions with other partners,
aligned on eight individual criteria and two group summary criteria for judging the Challengers
based on factors that show readiness to be part of the One Million Farmer Initiative. The eight
judging criteria included:
1. Product/service quality
• The product addresses the challenge core question (see challenge track
descriptions)
• The product meets a pressing market need and/or major obstacle for ag
transformation
• The product has strong additionality relative to other solutions
Vikas
Choudhary
Senior
Agricultural
Specialist, The World Bank
Group
Benjamin
Makai Senior
Manager,
Technology for
Development, Safaricom
Anup Jagwani Principal
Investment
Officer,
International
Financial
Corporation
(IFC)
John Kimani Project
Coordinator, National
Agricultural and
Rural Inclusive
Growth Project
(NARIGP)
Shaun Ferris Director of
Agriculture and
Livelihoods, Catholic Relief
Service
Joanne Gaskell Senior
Agriculture
Economist,
The World Bank
Group
Klaus Tilmes Senior Advisor, The World Bank
Group
Leesa Shrader AgriFin
Accelerate
Program
Director,
Mercy Corps
Sandeep
Gondhalekar Chief
Transformation
Officer, Kuza Biashara
Tom Dienya Head of
Agricultural
Stats, Kenya
Climate Smart
Agriculture
Project (KCSAP)
• Clarity of the product value proposition for smallholder farmers, agribusinesses,
and other SHF value chain intermediaries (in the case of B2B products and services)
• Quality of the product/service vis-à-vis market alternatives
2. Scalability
• There is evidence that the product/service can achieve substantial scale (3-5X of
current size) or (in rare instances) has already reached very substantial scale in
Kenya
• Jury’s assessment is that the scale up plan is realistic
• Product has competitive positioning vis-à-vis other offerings
• Scalability is not focused on number of registered farmers but rather farmers who
are actively engaged and using product
3. Ecosystem engagement
• Readiness and willingness to collaborate/partner with others on the One Million
Farmer Initiative platform
• Willingness to generate and share public goods, particularly data public goods,
with others on platform and/or broader ecosystems (e.g., anonymized farmer
registry data, soil mapping data, GIS data)
4. Impact
• Proven impact either at pilot or broader deployment scale that includes
achievement of key impact objectives, with precise details varying by track, but
translating into improved productivity, income, resilience of farmers
• Where known, impact is proxied by evidence from internal or external evaluations
with the gold standard being independent third-party evaluations (internal M&E
metrics considered but given lower weight)
• Track specific impact metrics to consider include:
o Agricultural Productivity
▪ Improvement of yields
▪ Outcome level proxies
• Improved farmer knowledge/awareness of good agricultural
practices, improved decision quality, etc.
• Labour-, input-, resource efficiency, and time savings due to
access to mechanization technologies
• Increased uptake and use of production input volumes
relative to baselines
o Market Linkages
▪ Improved farmer incomes/profits
▪ Outcome level proxies
• Marketed volumes
• Access to better and/or more guaranteed prices
• Lower cost for off-taker in reaching and managing farmer
• Inclusion in more formal / commercial value chains
o Farmer Financial Inclusion
▪ Improved yields
▪ Improved income
▪ Outcome level proxies
• Farmer access to payments, credit, insurance vs market
alternatives
• Cost of financial products relative to market
• Reduction in risks and costs for finance providers due to B2B
fintech products and services
• Farmer access to more formal financial services
o Data Analytics and Intelligence
▪ Improved yields and incomes as a result of better decisions being
made by decision makers across value chains (i.e., better market
planning, better resource allocation, etc.)
▪ Outcome level proxies
• Greater availability of and access to valuable data (e.g., high
frequency, real time, farm or field level, unique depth such
for soil diagnostics, etc.)
• Lower cost of data access
• Quality of data relative to market
5. Business model sustainability / financial viability
• For commercial DAT solutions, business model sustainability is defined as the
likelihood that the proposed model/approach will be commercially viable i.e., has
potential to breakeven and ideally is already profitable
• For non-commercial or blended model, business model sustainability is defined as
the ability to generate at least some earned revenues and to fill the gap with
substantial on-going government or donor results based funding based on the
outcomes of the products/service
• Relevant considerations for commercial financial viability include:
o Evidence of profitability or clear path to profitability
o Clearly defined revenue / monetization model with some evidence that the
model is supported by market realities
o Funding raised to date to fuel business expansion and growth
• Relevant considerations for non-commercial or blended models include:
o Significant donor/govt funding secured for scale / expansion
o Long track record of successful fundraising
o Evidence of / compelling plan to increase earned revenue to meet any grant
revenue shortfalls
6. Pitch delivery
• The overall pitch should be clear and informative
• Pitch should be engaging and interesting
• Presenter is confident
• The visual aids are clear and easy to understand
Finally in order to ensure that the Challengers would most benefit (from) the platform, two
additional criteria were used:
7. Company will benefit most from the platform
• The company will benefit the most from financial and incubation services
8. Company that offers the most value-add to the farmers on the platform
• The company is answering the most pressing needs of farmers (focus on priority
crop, or major farmer pain-point)
Selection of the First Cohort of DAT Innovators by the Jury
Challengers were ranked and evaluated on each criterion by each jury member on the basis
of information available in challenger dossiers, pitch presentations, responses to jury questions
during pitch discussions, and jury members expert judgement of DAT business models and
sector trends. The eight criteria were weighted based on the level of their importance for the
One Million Farmer Initiative program design. Jury deliberations followed each pitching
session to compute average scores as well as a rank ordering of challengers.
Based on normalized scores, the first cohort of DATs selected were:
Agricultural Productivity Theme
Digital Green uses a
video approach to
amplify extension
providers’ effectiveness
to improve farmers’
livelihoods. They partner
with existing extension
officers to provide
videos with highly
localized content,
human mediators to
reinforce key messages
and use near real-time
data and feedback from
farmers to inform
adjustments on the
content of the videos.
Farmers Pride
leverages technology
and franchising to
break down barriers
that have limited
success of farmers.
They provide a one
stop village level
online mobile
app/web platform
popularly known as
DIGISHOP that
ensures access to all
the necessary inputs,
services and
information farmers
need.
DigiCow provides
extension services to
farmers using an
innovative mobile phone
solution. They provide
training through a mobile
app in which farmers can
also chat and share ideas.
Voice-based training
coupled with SMSs is
provided to farmers
without access to
smartphones.
Precision Agriculture for
Development provides
low-cost mobile
agronomic advice to
farmers that is
accessible, relevant, and
customized to boost
yields.
Sunculture offers solar-powered
irrigation systems to smallholder
farmers and helps provide
financing for acquiring these
machineries to smallholder
farmers.
Market Linkages Theme
M-shamba is a Nairobi based Start-up that has
been working with farmers across East Africa
to effectively deploy farming technologies
among smallholder farmers using basic mobile
phones. The innovation focuses on the use of
simple phones commonly known as feature
phones to deliver vital information to the
smallholder farmers even in remote areas.
TruTrade is a social enterprise that
digitizes value chain transactions making
rural agricultural markets work better for
farmers, aggregators and buyers.
TruTrade’s service provides farmers with
reliable routes to market and fair prices
as well as agribusinesses and wholesalers
with traceable produce to meet their
quality specifications.
Tulaa is a marketplace for smallholder farmers in
Africa. Using mobile technology and artificial
intelligence, Tulaa provides quality inputs like
fertilizer on credit, tailored advice, and access to
reputable buyers to smallholder farmers.
Farmer Financial Inclusion Theme
ACRE is a service provider that links farmers to
insurance products so that they can
confidently invest in their farms. ACRE
automates weather risk modeling, payments
and communication through SMS and USSD
platforms, claims calculations, and
disbursement through mobile money.
Arifu is a social enterprise making it
possible for the least served people to
access the knowledge they need on
financial services from the organizations
they trust on any mobile phone. Arifu
provides both an education technology
platform and a content digitization
service.
Agri-wallet is a platform that enables financial
inclusion of all value chain actors around
smallholder farmers.
Data Analytics and Intelligence Theme
Astral Aerial is a drone operator. Offers up to
date, problem-specific data to farmers using
drones (a drone covers 1000 acres per flight,
with sensors to detect crop health at an
affordable price).
Oakar’s solution package offers farmers
and other stakeholders access the latest
knowledge, training, practices, data and
mechanization best suited for them.
Oakar’s Analytics platform incorporates
dynamic datasets that can provide
market information and facilitate easy
links between producers and markets.
UjuziKilimo provides a simple and fast way for
smallholder farmers to monitor soil fertility.
UjuziKilimo’s proprietary Sensor technology
SoilPal is a GPS and internet enabled device with
sensors that is used in farms to monitor the levels
of macro nutrients, weather, soil pH and moisture
content which directs water, lime and fertilizer
nutrient application rates based on local
requirements.
Partners
The World Bank Group
The World Bank works with low and middle-income countries and partners to provide
innovation and resources so that the food system lifts people out of poverty, produces safe
and nutritious food for all, and is more sustainable and resilient in the face of resource
constraints and climate change.
Learn more: www.worldbank.org/agriculture
The Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility
The Korea-World Bank Group Partnership Facility (KWPF), established in May 2013, is an
initiative to strengthen ties between the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance
(MoEF) and the World Bank Group (WBG). The facility’s overall objective is to assist developing
member countries of the WBG in achieving inclusive and sustainable economic growth and to
foster broader dialogue on economic development issues. The facility supports a broad range
of economic development opportunities with a focus on promoting best practices by
leveraging the WBG’s knowledge and convening power and Korea’s expertise. The
Government of Korea provided US$90 million from FY14 to FY16 and a replenishment of
US$90 million from FY17 to FY19 through this facility.
Learn more: http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/korea-world-bank-group-partnership-
facility
The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)
The ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation has a vision to have a secure and
wealthy Nation anchored by an innovative, commercially oriented and competitive agricultural
sector. To achieve its vision, its strategic objectives are to create an enabling environment for
Agricultural development, to increase productivity and outputs in agricultural sector, to
enhance national food security, to improve market access and trade and to strengthen
Institutional capacity
Learn more: http://www.kilimo.go.ke/
The United Nations Partnership for SDGs Platform
The Partnerships for SDGs online platform is United Nations’ global registry of voluntary
commitments and multi-stakeholder partnerships made in support of sustainable
development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The Partnerships for SDGs
platform also facilitates the sharing knowledge and expertise among multi-stakeholder SDG-
related partnerships and voluntary commitments, and for providing periodic updates on
their progress.
Learn more: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnerships/
Kuza Biashara
Kuza Biashara is an organization offering small business learning, training and empowerment
in Africa. The organization is based in Nairobi, Kenya. It is a mobile first micro-learning
platform offering youth, women & micro-entrepreneurs from informal communities
opportunities to learn, connect & grow on their own terms and at their own convenience.
Learn more: http://www.kuzabiashara.co.ke/
Dalberg Advisors
Dalberg Advisors is a strategic advisory firm which brings the best of private sector strategy
skills and rigorous analytical capabilities with deep knowledge and networks across
emerging and frontier markets. We work collaboratively across the public, private and
philanthropic sectors to fuel inclusive growth and help clients achieve their goals.
Learn More: https://www.dalberg.com/what-we-do/dalberg-advisors