Kuza hosts World Bank DAT Conference

The Disruptive Agricultural Technology Innovation Knowledge and Challenge Conference (DAT) that was hosted on 5th - 6th in Nairobi, Kenya by  the World Bank, Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility, Kuza Biashara, SDG Partnership Platform and Dalberg.  The conference brought together policymakers, scientists, Kenya’s county and central governments, agriculture industry executives and agricultural tech entrepreneurs  to discuss how disruptive technologies can be used to tackle the main challenges in the agricultural value chain.

Professor Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary State Department of Agricultural Research, highlighted that “Technology is key to boosting efficiency, productivity and competitiveness of agriculture on the African continent.”

Over two days, conference delegates heard from a powerful group of keynote speakers and panelists on the various challenges facing smallholder farmers and how the proliferation of digital technologies could disrupt the industry.

The DAT Conference also held a scaleup pitch competition for agricultural technology (agritech) companies. Eighteen companies pitched their businesses to a group of specially-selected judges and ten were selected as the first cohort to join  a specially developed agritech accelerator program where they will receive mentorship, coaching and business development support from The World Bank Group, Kuza Biashara and other influencers. The group will work collaboratively to transform the lives of 1 million smallholder farmers in Kenya - The  One Million Farmer initiative

For further reads:

Disrupting Kenya’s agritech landscape: enter the One Million Farmer Platform

By Parmesh Shah

Kenya is the undisputed agritech innovation hub in Africa, with one of every four agritech startups hosted there. Its agriculture sector contributes more than 25% to the national gross domestic product (GDP), is key to the country’s development strategy and employs more than 75% of the population in both on-farm and off-farm activities. Its thriving export horticulture industry earned the country more than $ 1.5 billion in 2018 alone. The country’s food and agriculture business is poised to grow in tandem with its population – estimated to be 65 million people by 2030. The agriculture industry is ripe for innovative disruption to seize the opportunity this growth offers. However, majority of Kenyan farmers struggle with low productivity of crops and livestock, low profitability, poor access to markets (for credit, inputs, outputs and equipment) and decision-making based on guesswork and gut-feel rather than data.

How can Kenya leverage the power of its tech innovation legacy to vastly improve the incomes, productivity and livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers who rely on agriculture? This was the central question that nearly 400 stakeholders recently tackled, at the inaugural Disruptive Agricultural Technology Conference and Challenge, with the conversations revolving around productivity, market linkages, farmer financial inclusion, data analytics, agricultural intelligence, policy and investment aspects of disruptive agricultural technologies (DATs). DATs have the potential to make farming more productive and profitable through time and energy-saving applications, services and processes. For instance, technologies such as real-time advisory services, climate-smart and improved seeds or data analytics can be used to improve farmers’ yields by providing a data-backed basis for decision-making. Digital platforms link the smallest of agricultural businesses to buyers, allow better prices, and increase their incomes by about 50%.

Over two days of the Challenge and Conference, I listened to innovators, development partners, researchers, government officials, incubators, investors, and farmers share their views on what is needed to scale up disruptive agritech innovations. These engagements were interspersed with business pitches from the agritech innovators on how their solutions can best tackle the challenges faced by smallholder farmers at scale. Digitizing one million farmers is the ambitious aspiration of the World Bank Group and the Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility together with the Kenyan Government, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Partnership Platform, Kuza Biashara, Dalberg and many other partners.

Scaling up the impact of digital and disruptive technologies on Kenyan agriculture requires a new approach; one that involves innovative program design and systematic investment in the knowledge, innovation and incubation ecosystem in the country. The One Million Farmer Platform is a collaborative and co-created digital platform comprising a suite of disruptive agritech solutions from Kenyan firms that address farmer challenges around productivity, market access, financial inclusion, and information asymmetry among others. This will be built over the next three years.

As I listened, what stood out for me is that gradually the One Million Farmer Platform is taking shape with all stakeholders identifying its core building blocks. Indeed, the pitches yielded 14 members of the first cohort of agritech innovators that will join the Platform’s collaborative incubation ecosystem. These were: DigiCow, Digital Green, Farmers Pride, Precision Agriculture for Development, and SunCulture (in the Productivity category); M-Shamba, TruTrade Africa, and Tulaa (in the Market Linkages category); ACRE Africa, Agri-Wallet and Arifu (in the Financial Inclusion category) and Astral Aerial, Oakar Services, and UjuziKilimo (in the Data Analytics category).

Through the Platform these entrepreneurs will access coaching, mentoring, networking opportunities, technical assistance, business development support and tailored (but limited) financial support to scale sustainably to contribute to the goal of digitizing one million farmers. As part of the initiative, a performance-based $ 1 million challenge fund will be available over three years to three cohorts of agritech innovators.

Undoubtedly the One Million Farmer Platform initiative and digital innovations more broadly promise to be a game changer for Kenya’s agricultural transformation. However, for this to happen all ecosystem actors must get three things right:

Data, data, data. There is need to digitize vast amounts of data currently locked in analogue systems and to bring these to the cloud to harness the power of data analytics and machine learning for effective decision-making along value chains. Through the Agricultural Observatory managed by the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), near-real-time data on agrometeorological conditions can be used to inform farmers’ decisions on when to plant. Also emerging from the discussions was the need to address issues of data security, quality, reliability and timeliness.

Sustainable investment and financing is needed to allow agritech start-ups to complete their innovation-learning-scaling pathway. Innovators need both financial and non-financial investments to enable them to sustainably scale their business models and customer reach. Over the two days, $ 12 million plus commitments were made for the One Million Farmer Platform initiative. This shows the ecosystem’s commitment to the goal but most importantly the business potential of both the agritech innovations and the Kenyan agriculture sector.

Policy as a key enabler. It is no accident that MPESA, Kenya’s revolutionary mobile money transfer app was developed there. The conditions were right: strong private sector, a vibrant innovation culture, and supportive policy environment. For disruptive agritech innovations to achieve this same success, policy needs to be an enabler. Policies governing DATs should be developed through stakeholder consultation not just by government policymakers. It is encouraging that Kenya’s agriculture ministry is developing use cases for digital technologies in implementing its agricultural transformation strategy: for warehouse receipting, e-wallets for farm inputs and digital farmer ledgers.

The One Million Farmer Initiative is financed by 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). Learn more: http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/korea-world-bank-group-partnership-facility

Parmesh Shah - World Bank

Parmesh Shah is the Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods and Agricultural Jobs at the World Bank. In this position he provides leadership to Bank’s work in these areas and supports development of global knowledge and learning in these areas to offer solutions to clients and other development partners.