An electronic resource center is providing thousands of farmers with timely agricultural information thanks to the impressive internet penetration with upto 15,000 farmers accessing it daily.
Launched in 2009, The National Farmers Information Service (Nafis) e-resource centre by the Kenya National Library Services (KNLS) has seen a rising number of hits from the initial 1,000 at launch in Nairobi to the current 15,000 daily visitors from across the country who use their internet-enabled mobile phones to access the site.
Joseck Olala, an ICT officer with KNLS said the e-resource centre is receiving positive response especially from farmers.
The centre that is now supported by the ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Extension Programme contains agricultural information on production, marketing and agro-weather information, which enables farmers to reduce losses while maximising profits during the sale of products.
“Currently more farmers visit the online database within our e-resource centre and access the information via their phones. We are expecting more farmers and public at large to join and use this information to adopt better farming methods,” Mr Olala said.
Nakuru boasts of one of the biggest resources centres with information in hard and soft copy on numerous topics in farming.
“We come in to help farmers produce more cheaply while giving them adequate information on the best prices available,” said Mr Olala.