Information Technology and Rural Development. Interesting case in Kenya.

Hello, I´m going to show you today a very interesting initiative set up in Kenya, where basic economic principles in alliance with basic ICT (information and communication technology)  are providing a highly valuable and useful service for small farmers disseminated all over Kenya, and now extending to other neighboring countries.

KACE (Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange) has developed a marketing information and linkage system (MILS) designed to facilitate competitive and efficient trade in agricultural commodities and services in Kenya, with the aim and potential for scaling out in the East African Community region. Through MILS, KACE collects, updates, analyses and provides reliable and timely marketing information and intelligence on a wide range of crop and livestock commodities, targeting actors in commodity value chains, with particular attention to smallholder farmers and small scale agribusinesses.

The information includes daily wholesale buying prices for various crop and livestock products in selected main markets in the country, as well as commodity offers to sell and bids to buy. KACE also links farmers and agribusinesses to markets through matching commodity offers and bids. Market information enhances the bargaining power of the farmer for a better price in the market place, and helps to link the farmer to input and output markets more efficiently and profitably.

As simple as that… Well, with the help of two easily accessible communication instruments: FM radio and SMS on mobile phones.

Soko Hewani involves using a radio programme to match offers to sell or lease, or bids to buy or rent agricultural and any other commodities, properties and services compiled by the KACE.Target agricultural commodities include maize, rice, wheat, millet, sorghum, beans, tomatoes, cabbages, onions, carrots, fruits, potatoes, bananas, cattle, sheep, goats, camels, chicken, turkeys, eggs, milk, fish, honey, seeds and fertilizers. Target properties include houses, offices, vehicles and land. Target services include processing, packaging, transport for commodities, storage / warehousing, grading, quality testing and finance.

The SMS service applies mobile telephony for market information delivery to users.  The market information currently available includes daily wholesale buying prices for about 20 commodities, as well as offers to sell and bids to buy. Farmers, agribusinesses and other interested users who are mobile phone network subscribers download KACE market information as SMS messages.

To know more about this very intelligent strategy watch the attached video or visit KACE website:  http://www.kacekenya.co.ke.

Congratulations for so much wise initiative.

WELCOME !!

It´s a enormous pleasure to welcome you to the Innovating Agribusiness Blog.

This, the first post, it´s obviously dedicated to the introduction of myself and the blog.

My name is José María Montalbán, though I thought that using a nick name could ease interaction with followers. Yes, my real name is a bit too long and complex. In some situations, when giving it to someone, I got back: “Sorry, did you say Mon-Taleban?”.

That´s why I chose Jose Monty as my public name.

I´m a spanish Agronomy Engineer, consultant and entrepeneur in Agribusiness, this is, anything related to businesses involved within the food and agricultural industry. More specifically, my 20 years of experience now, have run around the fresh fruits and vegetable sector and the modern horticulture.

Along all this time I had the opportunity to attend both, technical and managerial positions, in some reputed companies, and afterwards, work as a freelance consultant. This helped me to build a very broad vision and understanding of the complexities of this exciting business.

Moreover, I was lucky to have the chance of doing all this in an International environment, which makes it more enriching, professionally speaking. Lately, my experience have become specialized in the Arab Gulf region, where I discovered the huge potencial for the fresh produce industry, despite the apparently harsh conditions of Nature there. For that reason, I´m currently undertaking some investments and business ventures in the region.

My latest business project, AGROLUTION, is a company with the misión to serve all people, businesses and insitutions linked to the Fresh Produce World, by providing all kinds of Solutions, being these either goods or services. Agrolution is open to the world and specially to places most needed of support and assistance in the fostering of agriculture and food production, like extreme climate areas and developing countries.

So, around all that matter, I shall ellaborate content and collect information to be published in this blog, with the aim to make it useful and available to as many people as possible.

To make it even more valuable, you will also find here contributions of other experts and collaborators.

If you are a farmer, student, teacher, investor, businessman, official, trader, scientist, NGO, association, or any other agent type involved in Agribusiness, just follow this blog to obtain valuable information of your interest.

Thanks in advance for following.

See you soon !!