PROMOTING A DIGITAL FUTURE FOR THE KENYAN FARMER
The Co-operative University of Kenya is in the final stages of rolling out a digital platform under the Kenya Rural Transformation Centers Digital Platform (KRTCDP) Project. The project is supported by a USD 815,000 (approx. KES 105 million) grant by the Fund for African Private Sector Assistance through the African Development Bank. The platform is more than just a technological innovation- it is a game-changer for the agricultural sector. This is part of CUK’s contribution to Kenya’s larger effort to digitize agriculture, ensuring that technology drives sustainable development and economic empowerment. It is designed to develop a digital ecosystem connecting the farmer with different actors in the agricultural value chains through their agricultural cooperatives. The platform is initially being piloted for dairy, potato and maize value chains in Narok, Nakuru, Baringo and Nyandarua counties.
The platform that seeks to empower farmers through their cooperatives to streamline agricultural processes and strengthen value chains interaction hence paving way for enhanced productivity, profitability and sustainability, by integrating smallholder farmers into a connected, inclusive digital ecosystem. There are many cases where farmers produce goods but are unable to reach the markets. They may have a surplus but lack information, knowledge and data about the market and where they can sell their produce Furthermore, farmers may not be aware of suppliers, extension service providers, equipment, and financial service providers that can support their production. As part of this initiative, farmers will be able to know who is available in their area and whom they can quickly reach for relevant information such animal and crop management, extension services, marketplace information just to mention a few. The benefits of availing such information to the farmer to their mobile phones are immense. Knowing where the market is and what the prices are will eliminate the menace of and significantly increase famer incomes and make farming a profitable activity for the middlemen farmer. It will also reduce the burden on farmers or cooperatives from holding onto produce for too long, which may increase post-harvest losses. We anticipate a significant reduction such losses and inefficiencies through the platform.
The platform development process has been hailed by stakeholders as one of most highly consultative, stakeholder involvement and engagement process they have witnessed in the in the digital applications development space. Stakeholders have been involved in every milestone of the project. The project was launched on May 8, 2025, in Nakuru City and attended by stakeholders from four counties. After the launch the project embarked on an extensive platform user need gathering and analysis which culminated in a validation workshop that was conducted on the 21st of March 2024 in Nakuru City.
Following the validation of the user needs, the platform development team embarked on the design and development of the digital platform architecture and prototype. The dummy platform was presented to stakeholders in separate county-based workshops from 12th to 16th August 2024. These workshops provided a very important avenue to capture stakeholder comments on the prototype platform to ensure that key user needs and preferences were captured by the prototype. Comments from stakeholders were then incorporated int the platform culminating in another round of county-based prototype validation workshops that were conducted in the first week of October 2024.
In preparation for the platform commissioning, the CUK has already acquired and commissioned a state of art high-capacity server which will provide fast, uninterrupted and high reliability availability of services to platform users. The Project has also completed the geolocation mapping of all the 152 active agricultural cooperatives in the four pilot counties. Onboarding and training of users will be done from the November 2024 to March 2025 culminating with the commissioning in June 2025 marking the completion of the project and the beginning of a new era for Kenya’s agricultural sector. The platform will be available in three versions. It will have a web-based version, a mobile phone-based application dubbed FarmerCoopHub and the USSD version for those without smart phones. Stay tuned for the commissioning of the platform and witness the next chapter in Kenya’s agricultural evolution.
