Business
Mobile technology unlocks dairy farming potential in Kenya
Kenya has in the last two years witnessed an emerging crop of young talented techpreneurs whose innovative applications have raised the country’s profile as the mobile application capital of Africa.
A recent report titled: Mobile Life 2011, mobile phone literacy in Kenya indicated a sharp rise in mobile phone use buoyed by affordable handsets and reduced tariffs. This has seen the use of the gadget surpass personal computers as the primary medium of internet access. The government through the Ministry of Information, the ICT Board and the private sector has equally been vocal in challenging application developers to create software solutions that can meet the needs of the local market.
Innovations like the iCow that boost small scale farmers have been hailed as examples of how local developers can respond to market demands and make money by providing practical solutions.
For Naomi Wambui, another small holder dairy farmer, iCow has gone a long way in helping her manage her four dairy cows.
“I registered the cows in June and since then the service has boosted the productivity of my small herd”, she said. “I get an average of two text messages a day with instructions on what kind of feeds to use, what to give the calves when they are bloating and details about their breeding cycles.”
According to Ms Wambui, the application has enabled her raise her output by up to 50 percent. “In the past I used to get about one and a half to two litres per day from each cow but nowadays I get about three litres from each animal,” she said.
For Su Kahumbu and her team at Green Dreams, the next focus is to scale up the penetration and adoption of iCow by increasing the functionality of the application.
“We launched iCow on June 3 and the response from the farmers is fantastic just two months later,” says Ms Kahumbu.
“iCow was lately been mentioned in Forbes magazine as one of Africa’s best apps.” “We have further developed iCow Soko which enables farmers sell and buy livestock over the iCow platform”, she said.
Source: Business Daily
