Farm Africa motivates farmers access farm practices on mobile phone

From DAILY NEWS Reporter in Arusha

FARM Africa, a key international organisation that supports agricultural activities, has appealed to smallholder farmers to use mobile phone to access good farming practices and markets to fetch high prices.

Food and Trade Programme Manager for Farm Africa, Ms Beatrice Muliahela said this at a oneday workshop held in Arusha at the weekend that small-scale farmers need to make use of their mobile phone to access farm expertise and better prices for their crops.
“Farm Africa endeavours to ensure that small scale farmers in Tanzania utilise mobile phone formalities to publish prices of their crops and make a comparative market sources that will enable them sale their products at better market segments, and we emphasise this to be a practice to all East African countries to rely fully on these devices,” she said.
This two year programme is funded by The Department for International Development (DFID) through DAI and includes other partners like Rural Urban Development Initiative (RUDI) and VECO (now known as Rikolto) to support 70,000 smallholder farmers in Tanzania and Uganda. She said Farm Africa works in close collaboration with all stakeholders who are engaged in supporting small scale farmers who conduct grain crops with a major objective of empowering them secure better farming exercises as well as access market information at the palms of their hands.
She named such platforms as G-Soko, E-Soko and Ninayo who have brought market information services to farmers which can be accessed by the using mobile phone. Furthermore, she said that such systems go hand in hand with the systems of storing crops in warehouses, hence the management of such warehouses can in turn make public the tonnage that are stored in such warehouses, the standards of the crops, which is a landmark towards accessing reliable markets.
In her elaboration, Ms Muliahela said that such contemporary systems help farmers liberate themselves from the systems of direct sales from middlemen who are in syndicates to dictate the prices as well as procuring the crops at the expense of the poor farmers. Other stakeholders who work with Farm Africa in this programme include RUDI, VECO – Rikolto, DAI and the East Africa Grain Council (EAGC) whereas the grain crops that are in this list include maize, beans and rice.
Assistant Director for Post- Harvest Management and Services under Ministry of Agriculture, Ms Josephine Omolo said that the government will continue cooperating with Farm Africa and all its stakeholders to make sure that such platforms play a major role in helping farmers’ secure reliable markets. “The government has been putting in place better platforms that will help harness the agricultural sector and this has greatly enhanced the availability of food crops as well as cash crops, so these systems have come at the right time to add force to the farmers to access better markets,” she said.
She however, elaborated that the government has not put a prohibition for farmers to sell their food crops beyond the borders but at times when the government is sure of the food security in the country, the excess can be sold out of the country.