An online tool for Kenyan farmers has been delivering shocks to its users as they discover the crops they think are their biggest winners are sometimes really losers.
The tool collects all the farmers’ costs across the year, in easy forms, from seeds to fertilisers, and their sales prices at the end, and tells them how much money they really made on every crop.
Tracking every shilling that goes into your farm is the first step into farming as a business. Indeed, studies have shown that farmers who begin to keep records increase their incomes by 26 per cent. Despite this, seven out of ten commercial farmers in Kenya report having kept no records for their farm. The majority of the 32 per cent of farmers who did keep farm records just noted down one or two records, usually the price they bought the growing seeds and how much they sold their crops. This means most Kenyan farmers do not truly know if the tomatoes they sold, after deducting the cost of labour, buying fertiliser, the bike fare for delivering them to the market, made them a profit or a loss and by how much.
Through Farm Cloud, more than 700 Kenyan farmers mostly in Central and Eastern Kenya have a financial summary that alerts them to the profitability of their farm for the entire year. This is an account of the cost of farm inputs you bought, how much you paid all your employees vs what you earned from selling your crops.
This ready online book tackles the two biggest challenges reported by 68 per cent of farmers: The lack of the right tools to keep farm records and a lack of knowledge in records keeping.
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“We had a farmer who first started using our platform when he was growing French beans in Nakuru for export. In two seasons he switched to growing onions for the local market. This is because he realised that despite the premium prices he got for his Europe bound French beans, the amount of money he spent buying expensive EU approved pesticides, hiring agronomists to scout his farm to ensure the crop which is easily affected by pests is healthy, hiring casual workers to water the thirsty crop daily and few kilos of his French bean harvest that were rejected for failing quality standards ate into almost all of his profits,” explained Stacy Oyalo, Farm Cloud’s customer support agent.
She explained that like the farmer in Nakuru most Kenyan farmers do not record purchases they make during the course of farming. This is despite this being one of the main taps from which profits pour out. An agronomist who scouts your farm is paid, the pesticide they recommend you buy also costs and so does the fuel or bus fare you paid to have it delivered. If you do not spray the pesticide on your farm yourself, the sprayer is also paid. All this is often not recorded by farmers in determining the profitability of their farm.
“To keep track of these hidden costs that farmers neglect, Farm Cloud has Daily and Weekly Work Reports that track everything that happens on your farm; ploughing, irrigation, harvest, spraying, scouting and how much it costs,” said Peter Mumo, a software developer for the company.
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“When a farmer first logs in they will need to fill in what they are growing and whether they are growing it in an open field, greenhouse, screen-house or shade-net,” Mumo informed. This is followed by the variety, for example, Sukari F1 watermelon– Farm Cloud already has the various crops and crop varieties installed in their system. Lastly, you’ll fill in the quantity of seeds/ seedlings you are growing and the projected outcome after harvesting them. This helps to ascertain how much was lost when the crop was on the farm after harvest.
On the Work Reports, a farmer can also jot down observations they make each day for future reference and take pictures of any sickly plants which can be shared with Farm Cloud’s agronomists for advice.
They also have a Farm Assets section which records all the fertiliser and farm chemicals, tractor, agronomists that are bought, hired or paid for over the course of growing a crop and their individual costs.
The farm owner or farm manager logs in and records every payment made to farm workers throughout the day, whether they are permanent or casual labourers.
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The Farm Assets section also manages when the various chemicals were applied and their inventory, notifying the farmer when their supplies of fertilisers or pesticides are running low.
Finally, there is the buyer’s section which has the names of buyers you have worked with, their contacts, invoices sent and whether the buyer paid and if they did, if they paid on time. “This saves the farmer the hustle of going through their phone book looking for a buyer they worked with months ago. There is also a record of what price you sold your produce to them every time you worked with them and an option to add notes on their personality, i.e, if they are hard to bargain with, which gives you an idea of how much you can sell to them again,” Peter said.