Summary Document April 2019 - World Bankdocuments.worldbank.org/curated/en/... · 12 Central Bank...

Summary Document

April 2019

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Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 4

Context ............................................................................................................................................... 4

Trends in DAT Innovation in Africa and Kenya ............................................................................. 5

Vision of the One Million Farmer Initiative ................................................................................... 7

Conference Description and Agenda ................................................................................................. 9

Description ........................................................................................................................................ 9

Agenda ............................................................................................................................................. 10

Welcome Remarks .............................................................................................................................. 13

Welcome Remarks by Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and

Irrigation .......................................................................................................................................... 13

Welcome Remarks by Country Director, The World Bank Group ............................................ 16

Key Points Discussed During the Welcome Remarks ................................................................ 18

Key Learnings from Knowledge Sessions ........................................................................................ 21

Background of DAT Challenge and Conference - Vision of One Million Farmer Initiative ... 21

DATs’ Role in the Kenyan context ................................................................................................ 22

Knowledge Panel 1: Agricultural Productivity ............................................................................. 23

Knowledge Panel 2: Market Linkages .......................................................................................... 25

Knowledge Panel 3: Farmer Financial Inclusion .......................................................................... 27

Knowledge Panel 4: Data Analytics and Intelligence ................................................................. 29

Investment Roundtable.................................................................................................................. 31

Policies for Disruptive Agriculture Technology .......................................................................... 32

Ignite Talk: Harnessing the Power of Communities ................................................................... 34

Ignite Talk: Disruptive Technology as Game-changers for Small-scale Agribusinesses ....... 35

Ignite Talk: Revolutionizing the Use of Data for Policymaking (The Case of Agriculture

Observatory in Kenya) .................................................................................................................... 36

Closing Remarks ............................................................................................................................. 37

DAT Challenge .................................................................................................................................... 40

Challenge Overview ........................................................................................................................ 40

Challenge Process ........................................................................................................................... 41

Challenge Track Descriptions ........................................................................................................ 42

Theme 1 - Agricultural Productivity Challenge ....................................................................... 42

Theme 2 - Market Linkages (Off-taker Market Access) Challenge....................................... 43

Theme 3 - Farmer Financial Inclusion Challenge .................................................................... 44

Theme 4 - Data Analytics and Intelligence Challenge ........................................................... 45

Jury Composition and Judging Criteria ....................................................................................... 47

Selection of the First Cohort of DAT Innovators by the Jury .................................................... 51

Partners ................................................................................................................................................ 53

The World Bank Group .................................................................................................................. 53

The Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility ................................................................................. 53

The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI) ............................... 53

The United Nations Partnership for SDGs Platform ................................................................... 53

Kuza Biashara .................................................................................................................................. 54

Dalberg Advisors ............................................................................................................................ 54

Introduction

Context

The World Bank Group defines ‘Disruptive Agricultural Technologies (DATs)’ as digital

and non-digital innovations that enable smallholder farmers to overcome their current

constraints. The World Bank’s definition of DATs is a broad one, which takes into account the

rapid evolution of underlying technologies and business models, as well as the need to tailor

these technologies to specific market and value chain contexts. Relevant agricultural

technologies include digitally-enabled advisory and climate information services, digitally

enabled services that link farmers to production inputs (including mechanization), digitally-

enabled services that link farmers and their produce to buyers and markets, macro agriculture

decision intelligence tools that can inform government, funder, and agribusiness resource

allocation decisions, and data intermediary services that collect and analyze farm or farmer

data as an input into downstream decisions and use cases (e.g., drone farm surveillance,

weather data analytics, satellite crop monitoring, pest & disease surveillance systems). Beyond

such agri-tech products and services, other in scope include agri-energy nexus products (e.g.,

solar off-grid irrigation, processing and cold-chain solutions), portable agriculture diagnostic

tools (e.g., crop, soil, agricultural input diagnostic equipment), and bio-fortified foods.

DAT innovations provide many benefits to smallholder farmers and agribusinesses and

help them to optimize their operations and improve productivity. While traditional

solutions have only produced single-digit annual productivity growth for major crops, DATs

have the potential to provide enough disruption to lead to double-digit productivity growth.

These innovations directly address critical constraints that farmers face such as low yields, lack

of access to markets, and inability to access credit finance. DATs can be a tool to improve

yields via tailored advisory services using farm-specific data. They can also enable farmers to

access a range of buyers locked in at good price points and increase transaction transparency

in the process. Digitally tracking transactions and farm-specific information, can assist the

credit vetting process undertaken by financial institutions and potentially lead to increased

access to capital. As such, DAT innovations enable smallholder farmers and agribusinesses to

scale-up and improve their productivity, profitability, and competitiveness.

DATs also have the potential to energize African agriculture by drawing in youth. In

Africa, about 70% of the population is under 30, with the youth population growing faster than

any other region.1 This further exacerbates the concern about the increasing youth

unemployment rate. High youth employment results in several challenges such as reduced

economic growth, increased crime rates, and poverty traps. DAT innovations can help to

mitigate this as they create many new, higher quality jobs in the agriculture sector like farmer

surveillance and data analysis.

1 World Economic Forum, “These are Africa’s fastest-growing cities – and they’ll make or break the continent” 2016.

Trends in DAT Innovation in Africa and Kenya

Over the past two years the number of African DATs has multiplied. Demand for region-

specific innovations and a conducive enabling environment in certain cities and countries has

spurred this growth. Additionally, DATs in Africa are currently at an inflection point where the

falling cost of technology is allowing scalable innovations. For instance, cellular subscriptions

are sky-rocketing – with 420 million unique mobile subscribers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

and mobile internet penetration reaching 240 million people (26% penetration in SSA) in

20162. The emergence of these technologies has generated a new genre of entrepreneurs who

are responding to the local needs and contexts of Africa’s unique food market. Nurturing this

wave of DAT entrepreneurs to help new innovations reach scale would allow African food

systems to leapfrog the innovation gap.

Despite the proliferation of DATs in SSA’s agriculture sector, DATs are yet to witness

systematic and large-scale adoption. According to the Kaufmann Foundation, only 1.1% of

technology innovation start-ups across all sectors scale-up.3 Crucial to scaling up innovations

is the “innovation ecosystem” – an environment that enables entrepreneurs to engage in

iterative processes.4 This includes support structures that can enable smallholder farmers to

adopt new technologies, investments in basic infrastructure (roads, bridges, storage, etc.) and

technology infrastructure (broadband and connectivity), and policies such as tax incentives or

spectrum management to ensure connectivity in rural areas for last mile delivery.5 Scaling up

also requires an ecosystem in which actors including governments, companies, investors, and

development partners can collaborate to provide support to technology innovations across

their life cycles.

The potential impact of DATs is especially promising in Kenya, where the agriculture

sector employs 40% of the total population and more than 70% of the rural people.6 The

importance of the agriculture sector in Kenya has been emphasized by the President’s Big 4

Agenda7 and Vision 2030.8 Given the objective to achieve full food and nutrition security in the

country, there has been demand to transform the sector. Currently the agriculture sector

directly contributes 26% to Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and a further 27% indirectly

through the manufacturing, distribution, and service sectors. 6Given the contribution of

smallholder farmers in the sector it is imperative for them to have the right knowledge, tools,

and resources to drive growth in the sector and DATs have the opportunity to accelerate this

linkages.

2 GSMA Intelligence, “The Mobile Economy Sub-Saharan Africa”, 2017

https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=7bf3592e6d750144e58d9dcfac6adfab&download 3 Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, “Kaufmann Index of Growth Entrepreneurship”, 2017

https://www.kauffman.org/kauffman-index/reporting/-/media/8cbc2c338f81411ab3ac9a39b94c2ffa.ashx 4 World Economics Forum, “Innovation with a Purpose”, 2018 5 World Bank Group, “Enabling the Business of Agriculture”, 2017 6 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “The agriculture sector in Kenya” 7 The Big 4 https://big4.president.go.ke/ 8 Kenya Vision 2030 https://vision2030.go.ke/

https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=7bf3592e6d750144e58d9dcfac6adfab&download

https://big4.president.go.ke/

https://vision2030.go.ke/

Kenya is leading the agricultural technology space in Africa as one of the top-rated

digital ecosystems on the continent.9 The country has the third largest tech incubation and

acceleration hub in the region.10 Additionally, mobile connectivity and high penetration rates

contributes to the success of Kenya in the agricultural technology landscape. Kenya has some

of the highest levels of mobile connectivity (i.e., 85-90% penetration of unique mobile

subscribers vs. 44% on average for SSA region).11 The country is also characterized by a robust

mobile money ecosystem, with over 70% of the population using mobile money regularly.12

Meanwhile, in 2017, the mobile penetration rate in Kenya was 59% compared to 44% average

for SSA13, with 30% of rural population owning smartphones while 72% own feature phones. 14

Importantly, approximately 30% of agri-tech start-ups in the SSA region are operating

in Kenya and 18% are headquartered there.15 Using a broader definition of agri-tech,

McKinsey estimated that 25% of all agri-tech startups were likewise headquartered in Kenya

in 2017. This new genre of DAT innovators is thriving. They recognize unique local contexts

and are successfully using cutting-edge technologies to cater to Kenyan smallholder farmers

and smallholder farmer-facing intermediaries like agribusinesses, financial institutions, farmer

cooperatives, and NGOs.

The timing for DATs to scale-up is ripe in Kenya. Many Kenya-focused DATs have

successfully piloted their solutions and are starting to invest in scale-up activities. So far two

players (WeFarm and Safaricom’s Digifarm) have broken the 1 million farmers’ barrier. Falling

technology cost as an industry trend and evolution in business models are further moving the

sector to a tipping point.

Nonetheless, due to a range of ecosystem challenges, many DATs are still constrained.

An assessment conducted by the World Bank Group found DATs are particularly limited in

their economics, impact, and scale. The challenges that underpin this occur across the

ecosystem. There is demand for increased policy clarity and support for DATs in Kenya.

Additionally, early-staged innovators have difficulty securing funding as there are deemed to

have higher risk models. They also lack access to high quality and low-cost data public goods

such as weather data, farmer registries, and soil data. Critically, a major challenge constraining

DATs is an absence of linkages between them and existing agribusiness platforms and players.

This is key because these platforms and players have access to large numbers of smallholder

farmers that DATs can leverage on.

9 Kenya is rated #5 in Africa in the WB Digital Adoption Index (2016), #2 in HBR Digital Evolution Index (2017), #2

in the region based on the global Enabling Digitalization Index (2018) 10 In 2018 Kenya was rated third in the SSA region based on the number of tech incubators and accelerators (30)

out of the 400+ tech incubator/accelerators in Africa (GSMA) 11 GSMA, “The Mobile Economy Sub-Saharan Africa 2018”, 2018 12 Central Bank of Kenya, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and Financial Sector Deepening - Kenya, “FinAccess

Household Survey”, (2018) 13 GSMA, “Accelerating Affordable Smartphone Ownership in Emerging Markets”, 2017 14 Deloitte, “Game of Phones: Deloitte’s Mobile Consumer Survey. The Africa Cut 2015/2016”, 2016 15 Preliminary findings from CTA/Dalberg report on “Digitalisation for Agriculture – Africa", 2019

Vision of the One Million Farmer Initiative

The World Bank believes that a vibrant innovation ecosystem is crucial to the scaling of

DATs. To achieve this, systematic investments in knowledge, innovation, policies, capital, and

incubation are all needed in the country. It must enable innovators to engage in iterative

processes to improve their technologies and business models, prove out their impact and

return on investment, and rapidly extend their reach.16 Kenya already has a budding innovation

ecosystem as evident from the sudden surge in DATs in recent years. This existing system now

needs to be harnessed to drive the scale-up of DATs.

The World Bank along with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and

Irrigation (MoALFI) and Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility is launching the One

Million Farmer Initiative. It is a three-year partnership that will link one million Kenyan

farmers, across 14 different agricultural value chains and 45 counties in Kenya, to a digitally-

enabled platform. The platform will integrate and coordinate the activities of leading Kenya-

focused DATs. The One Million Farmer Initiative will build on and link to existing World Bank

programming in Kenya, most notably the Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project (KCSAP)

and the National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project (NARIG). Both projects

support more than a million farmers, with aggregate investments of $450 million.

Through partnership collaboration, the One Million Farmer Initiative will bring together

a group of best-in-class DATs in Kenya and link these innovators to experts, investors,

agribusinesses, and government partners at national and county levels. All activities will be

centred on a common mission of delivering value to one million Kenyan smallholder farmers

(and related intermediaries) covered by the program. A secondary objective is to create

demonstration effects to validate the replication of this digitally-enabled innovation

ecosystem platform in other geographies beyond Kenya. Currently, the World Bank envisions

extending the initiative to an additional 8-10 African countries drawing on lessons learned in

Kenya.

Through the One Million Farmer Initiative, the World Bank believes that all ecosystem

actors will achieve economies of scale in reaching smallholder farmers. The platform will

enable DAT innovators to take advantage of large-scale identification, data collection, data

analytics services (e.g. agronomy content and geospatial farm and soil maps), as well as

digitized farmer profiles. As such, each ecosystem actor will save on undertaking these

activities themselves or spending more in operating without this information. As a

consequence, this will translate into improved business model sustainability for innovative DAT

businesses.

Smallholder farmers will also receive a host of benefits derived from the One Million

Farmer Initiative. They will have access to affordable services that address major pain-points

16 World Economic Forum, “Innovation with a Purpose”, 2018

in their operation. By up-taking the host of innovations on the platform, they will be able to

increase their yields, receive financial services, access local and international markets, and

many more. Ultimately, through optimizing their operations through innovations, smallholder

farmers will benefit from increased income generation and poverty reduction.

Conference Description and Agenda

Description

The World Bank hosted the Disruptive Agriculture Technology Innovation Knowledge

and Challenge Conference on April 5-6 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya. The aim of the conference

was to mobilize knowledge for the One Million Farmer Initiative across four themes, namely

Agricultural Productivity, Market Linkage, Farmer Financial Inclusion, and Data Analytics and

Intelligence. Along with these four themes, the discourse also included sessions to promote

conducive policies and investment climate (see conference agenda in the next section).

The Conference also included a challenge to mobilize innovators who would join the One

Million Farmer Initiative’s platform as the ‘First cohort of innovators’. The Challenge saw

leading DAT innovators pitch their strategies with the chance of receiving performance

rewards, acceleration funding, incubation, mentoring, and financial support to scale up their

innovations in Kenya. The Conference laid the foundation for the innovations to scale up in

Kenya by connecting a million Kenyan farmers to disruptive agricultural technologies. Coming

out of the DAT Conference and Challenge, further details of the One Million Farmer Initiative

platform will be jointly designed by the innovators, partners, and funders involved over the

next over the next 3 years.

Agenda

Day 1: 5 April 2019, Friday

8:00 - 8:30 AM Registration

Welcome Remarks

8:30 - 9:30 AM Welcomed by: Prof. Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

& Jeehye Kim, Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group

- Sidharth Chatterjee, United Nations Resident Coordinator

- Edson Mpyisi, Chief Financial Economist and Co-ordinator Enable Youth Programme, African Development Bank

- Sriram Bharatam, Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited

- Paolo Belli, Program Leader, Africa, The World Bank Group

- Mary Nzomo County Executive Committee, Representing the Council of Governors

- Micheni Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation

Background of DAT Challenge and Conference - Vision of One Million Farmer Initiative

9:30 - 9:45 AM Dr. Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group

DATs’ role in the Kenyan context

9:45 - 10:15 AM Michael Hailu, Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA)

Michael Tsan, Partner, Dalberg

10:15 -10:45 AM Coffee Break

Theme 1 – Agricultural Productivity

10:45 – 12:00 PM

Moderator: Dr. Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group & Michael

Tsan, Partner, Dalberg

Knowledge Panelists:

- Boniface Akuku, Director of ICT, Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organisation (KALRO)

- Dr. Benjamin Kwasi Addom, Team Leader, ICTs for Agriculture, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation(CTA)

- Janalize van Buuren, Divisional Sales Manager – East and Central Africa, John Deere

- John Logan, Country Director Kenya, TechnoServe

- Shaun Ferris, Director of Agriculture and Livelihoods, Catholic Relief Service

- Tania Lozansky, Senior Manager, International Financial Corporation (IFC)

12:00 – 1:00 PM Challenge: How will your approach/innovation help ensure Kenyan farmers have achieved disruptive changes in

productivity using the latest knowledge, training, practices, and data?

Presentations and pitching by shortlisted innovators

1:00 – 2:15 PM Networking Lunch

2:15 – 2:30 PM Ignite Talk: Harnessing the Power of Communities

Sriram Bharatam, Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited

Theme 2 - Market Linkages

2:30 – 3:45 PM

Moderator: Jeehye Kim, Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group


- Mary Nzomo, County Executive Committee, Trans Nzoia County

- Benjamin Makai, Senior Manager, Technology for Development, Safaricom

- Betty Kibaara, Associate Director, Rockefeller Foundation, Africa Region Office

- Castro Antwi-Dandso, Director of Sales and Marketing, ESOKO

- Mikael L. Clason Höök, Mastercard Foundation Rural and Agricultural Finance Learning Lab

- Sidhartha Samal, Digital Head, Africa & Middle East, OLAM

3:45 – 4:15 PM Coffee Break

4:15 – 5:15 PM

Challenge: Given the limited market linkages for both inputs and production, how can you facilitate linkages between

buyers and sellers along the value chain?


5:15 – 5:30 PM Ignite Talk: Disruptive Technology as game-changers for smallholder Agribusinesses

Tim Chambers, Co-founder & Managing Director and founder, InspiraFarms

5:30 PM onwards Networking Cocktail

Day 2: 6 April 2019, Saturday

Theme 3 - Farmer Financial Inclusion

8:30 - 9:15 AM

Moderator: Diego Arias, Lead Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group & Naoko Koyama-Blanc, Partner, Dalberg


- Esther Kasalu-Coffin, Country Director, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

- Leesa Shrader, AgriFin Accelerate Program Director, Mercy Corps

- Lucas Meso, Managing Director, Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC)

- Reuben Gicheha, Program Officer, Financial Inclusion, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

9:15 - 10:00 AM

Challenge: How can your innovation help to expand coverage of financial services to farmers, including credit, savings, and

other financial services?


10:00 - 10:30 AM

Ignite Talk: Revolutionizing the use of data for policymaking (The case of Agriculture Observatory in Kenya)

Dr. Erick C.M. Fernandes, Global Lead - Technology, Innovation, & Climate-Smart Agriculture, The World Bank Group

Caroline Sartorato Silva Franca, Consultant, The World Bank Group

10:30 - 10:45 AM Coffee break

Theme 4 - Data Analytics and Intelligence

10:45 -12:00 PM

Moderator: Ashesh Prasann, Agricultural Economist, The World Bank Group & Michael Tsan, Partner, Dalberg


- Boniface Akuku, Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research

Organization (KALRO)

- Christophe Bocquet – Senior Data Scientist & AgriTech Lead, Dalberg Data Insights

- Debisi Araba, Director, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

- Dr. Kala Fleming, Founder, Diaspora AI

- Dr. Ladisy Komba Chengula, Lead Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group

- Stewart Collis, Senior Program Officer, Digital Agriculture Solutions, Gates Foundation

12:00 - 12:45 PM

Challenge: How can you increase access to low-cost and accessible data in agriculture or use existing data to enable other

entities to better serve farmers?


12:45 - 1:45 PM Networking Lunch

Investment Roundtable

1:45 – 2:45 PM

Moderator: Tim Smyth, Kuza Biashara Limited


- Anup Jagwani, Principal Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation (IFC)

- Martine Jansen, Manager Data-Driven Innovation, Rabobank Foundation

- Olukemi Dolly Afun-ogidan, Principal Agribusiness Officer, African Development Bank

- Sandeep Khapre, CEO, Binder Dijker Otte (BDO)

- Shudhan Kohli, Co-Founder, and CEO, Grey Elephant Ventures

Policies for Disruptive Agriculture Technology

2:45 – 3:45 PM

Moderator: Arif Neky, Senior Advisor – UN Strategic Partnerships, Coordinator – SDG Partnership Platform, UN Resident

Coordinator’s Office


- Prof. Jerome Ochieng, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT)

- Prof. Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

- Andrew Karlyn, Strategic & Learning Lead, AgriFin Accelerate at Mercy Corps

- Mulat Demeke Desta, Senior Policy Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

- Philip Thigo, Technical Advisor - Data & Innovation, Office of the Deputy President

Synthesis Session

3:45 PM – 4:00 PM Synthesis session: summary of the two days

Michael Tsan, Partner, Dalberg

DAT Awards and Closing Remarks

4:00 – 5:00 PM

Closing Remarks

Simeon Kacou Ehui, Director, The World Bank Group

Jury’s reflection on Challenges

Jury Representatives

Awards: One Million Farmer Initiative ‘First Cohort Awards’

Dina Umali-Deininger, Practice Manager, The World Bank Group

Thank you Note

Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group

Prof. Jerome Ochieng, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT)

Prof. Micheni J. Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

Mr. Harry K. Kimtai, Principal Secretary - Livestock, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

Welcome Remarks

Welcome Remarks by Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,

Fisheries and Irrigation

(Represented by the Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of

Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation)

The Government of Kenya, in partnership with the

World Bank Group, Korea World Bank Partnership

Facility (KWPF), and Kuza Biashara, welcomes you to

Savannah Valley for the Disruptive Agricultural

Technology Challenge and Conference 2019.

Kenya is beginning to ride a new wave of a technology

revolution with sky-rocketing cellular subscriptions

(with 28.3M unique mobile subscribers, 60%

penetration17).

Today, Nairobi is the epicenter for technological

innovation. Kenya's $1 billion18 tech hub is the home to

hundreds of innovators, as well as global technology

firms like IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. Our innovators are

focusing their creative energies on challenges that matter most to Kenyans; we believe that

no challenge is more significant than raising agricultural productivity and rural incomes.

Whereas we have made progress in modernizing agriculture in Kenya, however, we have not

yet reached our full potential.

To achieve this potential, we must do agriculture in a different way. The Agriculture Technology

(AgriTech) innovators today are disrupting the conventions in agriculture by providing

solutions to key constraints faced by farmers – financial, market information, data, and advisory

services; therefore, supporting our farmers to leapfrog to new levels of productivity, efficiency,

competitiveness, and income, improve nutritional outcomes and enhance resilience to climate

change. Thus, Kenya is at the forefront of technology-driven transformation for small and

marginal farmers on the continent.

The Agriculture Technology (AgriTech) revolution aligns well with the strategic objectives of

the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALF&I) as it allows us to

create an enabling environment for agricultural development, increase productivity and output

in the agricultural sector, improve market access and trade, and ultimately enhance national

food security. The focus of these innovations has been smallholder agriculture which is in line

with Kenya Vision 2030. Vision 2030 reiterates the importance of transforming smallholder

subsistence agriculture into an innovative, commercially oriented, and modern sector19. These

AgriTech innovations can also help achieve the first flagship goal of Agricultural Sector

17 GSMA intelligence THE MOBILE ECONOMY SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 2017 18 https://www.wired.com/story/kenya-silicon-savannah-photo-gallery/ 19 Kenya Vision 2030

Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) 2019-2029, which aims to increase smallholder

farmers income by targeting 1 million farmers20. Furthermore, the new-age innovators are

attracting skilled youth to agriculture thus fulfilling Kenya’s Youth Agribusiness Strategy which

is aimed at providing new opportunities for youth in agriculture21.

MoALF&I is already leveraging technology to make value chains more efficient and reduce

risks. MoALF&I is working with the Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology

(ICT) to register all farmers in the country, a move that is expected to boost service delivery to

smallholder farmers.22 MoALF&I is also working with the World Bank on Kenya Climate Smart

Agriculture Project (KCSAP) and National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project

(NARIGP) to find ways to make market linkages more effective through digital tools. The

Kenyan Government, together with the Swiss Re Group, GIZ, World Bank and ILRI, is also

implementing the Kenya Livestock Insurance Program (KLIP) since 2014. KLIP is an index-based

livestock insurance program that uses satellite technology to protect pastoralists in the remote,

arid and drought-prone rangelands of Kenya from the impacts of extreme weather.

Hence, the technology revolution has kickstarted well with contributions from all sector actors.

All it needs now is a scale-up to multiply the impact.

At the conference, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

along with the World Bank Group will launch One Million Farmer Initiative. The One Million

Farmer initiative aims to impact the lives of one million farmers in Kenya by leveraging the

potential of disruptive technologies. To this end, the Conference will mobilize the agricultural

ecosystem to discuss the potential of disruptive technologies in Kenya. Innovators will get an

opportunity to present their ideas and join the One Million Farmer Initiative. We believe that

this Conference will build the momentum to scale-up the innovations and agricultural

technologies by providing a historic platform that brings together global leaders, innovators,

leading policymakers, development partners, and technology experts to discuss innovation for

agricultural transformation in Kenya and beyond.

The two-day conference will provide an interactive experience through:

• The Disruptive Agriculture Technologies (DAT) Challenge will bring together over 20

inspiring innovators to pitch their Agritech solutions focused on smallholder farmers in

Kenya

• 6-panel discussions drawing together 30+ experts in the Agritech field, covering a wide

variety of topics, such as access to advisory services, access to financial services and data

policy for disruptive agriculture technologies.

• The panel discussions and DAT challenge will provide a platform for all innovation

ecosystem players to interact with one another, build a network of Agritech in Nairobi, find

20 Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) 2019-2029 21 http://extwprlegs1.fao.org/docs/pdf/ken171450.pdf 22 https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001280282/government-to-collect-farmers-data-in-4-months https://www.nation.co.ke/business/seedsofgold/Briefs-on-agricultural-news-/2301238-4354850-isnr5rz/index.html

https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001280282/government-to-collect-farmers-data-in-4-months

synergies to collaborate and grow together, further channelizing the investments to scale-

up their operations.

I would like to close by highlighting that smallholder agriculture provides employment to 75%

of the population and 80% of food supplies, but has limited access to finance, inputs, markets,

information, and other services. Technology innovations can overcome all these challenges –

but it won’t happen automatically. We need to combine innovation, investment and policy to

harness the power of the technology revolution to benefit smallholder farmers.

I urge you all to engage in the dialogue, share thoughts and ideas on the future of agriculture.

Hon. Mwangi Kiunjuri, EGH, MGH

Cabinet Secretary,

Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation

Welcome Remarks by Country Director, The World Bank Group

(Represented by Paolo Belli, Program Leader, Africa, World Bank Group)

I am pleased to welcome you all to the first ever Disruptive

Agricultural Technology Challenge and Conference.

At the World Bank Group, we are committed to ending extreme

poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Agriculture and food

systems play a central role in meeting these goals.

We know that Africa will be home to 2 billion people by 2050; over

the same period, the number of Kenyans will grow to 85 million.

Kenya’s food production will therefore need to grow by 75% by 2030

to keep up with the additional food demand. On the supply side, Africa’s agriculture and food

business are projected to grow to 1 trillion dollars by 2030. Accounting for input supply,

logistics, processing, packaging, trade, retail and other off-farm activities within value chains,

agriculture remains the largest employer in Africa, with several emerging jobs and

entrepreneurship opportunities for engaging technologically savvy youth. Indeed, these trends

offer a unique opportunity to create high-quality jobs all along the agri-food system, spur

farmer-centered technological innovation, and enhance agricultural productivity.

In Kenya, agriculture is the main contributor to the attainment of two of the pillars of the

Government’s Big 4 Agenda – manufacturing and food and nutrition security. The World Bank

is currently supporting Kenya’s food and nutrition security agenda through the following

projects: Climate Smart Agriculture (US$250 million), the National Agricultural Rural Inclusive

Growth (US$200 million), the Regional Pastoral and Livelihoods Resilience (US$77 million), and

two large-scale irrigation projects.

Innovation in agriculture is, without doubt, an important tool to tackle food security, and raise

overall productivity and profitability in the agriculture sector. The range of agri-tech

innovations that can be employed to transform Kenya’s agriculture is both exciting and

endless. This includes weather data analytics, drones and satellites-based remote sensing and

imagery, precision agriculture, Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications utilizing sensors for soil,

water, plant and animal diseases, and fintech solutions for farmers, among many others. Low-

cost digital technology represents a vast untapped potential for farmers, investors, and

entrepreneurs in Africa.

Over the next two days, you will actively engage with each other on practical and actionable

solutions to scale up innovations that have the potential to transform Kenyan agriculture and

the challenges faced by farmers. However, developing agri-tech innovations is not enough.

Firstly, farmers need to be engaged and trained on how to effectively adopt them. Secondly,

investors need to back the innovators to scale up. Lastly, governments need to create the

policy environment and infrastructure that will encourage the large-scale use of these

disruptive innovations.

Reaching one million farmers in the next 10 years with disruptive agri-tech innovations seems

ambitious, but I have confidence that the innovators and all actors in this conference will

provide useful insights on how to attain these targets. On behalf of the World Bank Group, I

would like to congratulate all the finalists of the innovation challenge. Their business ideas and

plans will contribute to the transformation of Kenya’s agriculture, towards improved incomes

for farmers, food security and job creation.

Let me thank the Government of Kenya, the Korea-World Bank Group Partnership Facility,

Kuza Biashara, Dalberg and many others who made this Disruptive Agricultural Technology

Challenge and Conference possible.

Key Points Discussed During the Welcome Remarks

Description

The Conference opened with remarks by senior leadership from the World Bank Group, United

Nations, African Development Bank, and Kuza. The Principle Secretary, Fisheries delivered the

inaugural Address, which was followed by a speech delivered on behalf of the Chairman of the

Council of Governors, and comments made by the Principle Secretary, State Department for

Agriculture Research.

Speakers

Key points discussed

Paolo Belli, Program Leader, Africa, World Bank Group

Agriculture and food systems play a central role in meeting the World Bank Groups goals

of ending poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Africa will be home to 2 billion people

by 2050; over the same period, the number of Kenyans will grow to 85 million. Kenya’s food

production will therefore need to grow by 75% by 2030 to keep up with the additional food

demand. On the supply side, Africa’s agriculture and food business are projected to grow to 1

trillion dollars by 2030. In Kenya, agriculture is the main contributor to the attainment of two

Micheni Ntiba, Principal

Secretary - Fisheries,

Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,

Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

Hamadi Boga Principal

Secretary, Agricultural Research , Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,


Mary Nzomo County

Executive Committee,

Representing the Council of

Governors

Sidharth Chatteree

United Nations Resident

Coordinator

Edson Mpyisi Chief Financial Economist and Co-ordinator Enable Youth Programme,

African Development

Bank

Sriram Bharatam Founder &

Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara

Limited

Paolo Belli Program

Leader, Africa, World Bank

Group

of the pillars of the Government’s Big 4 Agenda – manufacturing and food and nutrition

security.

Innovation in agriculture is an important tool to tackle food insecurity and raise overall

productivity and profitability in the agriculture sector. Low-cost digital technology

represents a vast untapped potential for farmers, investors, and entrepreneurs in Africa.

However, developing agri-tech innovations is not enough. Firstly, farmers need to be engaged

and trained on how to effectively adopt them. Secondly, investors need to back the innovators

to scale up. Lastly, governments need to create the policy environment and infrastructure that

will encourage the large-scale use of these disruptive innovations.

Sidharth Chatterjee, United Nations Resident Coordinator

The timing of this conference is crucial because there is strong political weight and push

from the government behind the agriculture transformation agenda. The right public

policies and leadership are in place to drive transformation in the sector. County governors

are not just grappling with the challenges of food insecurity but are transforming their counties

into food surplus areas.

Through the convergence of partnerships and knowledge we can transform the space.

We cannot achieve scalable results for the Sustainable Development Goals without the might,

innovation, and technology of the private sector. The United Nations working together with

the World Bank, civil society, the private sector, and the Kenyan government can drive these

results. Kenya has an opportunity to set the blueprint for what agribusiness and scale will look

like in Africa.

Edson Mypisi, Chief Financial Economist and Co-ordinator Enable Youth Programme, African

Development Bank

Three elements - the youth, agriculture, and ICT – must be addressed to move the

agriculture agenda forward and drive economic activity in Africa. Since over 70% of the

population in Africa is under 35 years, the youth need to be put at the center of all policies,

programs, and strategies introduced. Meanwhile, there is a huge productivity gap in

agriculture, as highlighted by the $35 billion annual food imports in Africa that needs to be

closed.

Advances in technology offer endless opportunities to change the business models in

the agriculture sector. Connectivity and internet utilization are very important in the space.

During an African Development Bank value chain project in Gabon, youth leaders commented

that they would only move from the city to rural areas to enter the agriculture space if there is

internet connectivity.

Sriram Bharatam, Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited

There is enough space for all players in the ecosystem to collaborate. There is a lot of

room for everyone to contribute their own respective expertise. Kuza has impacted more than

4.2 million people and created 150,000 new jobs in Kenya over 4 years. Kuza has also created

a backpack kit that is packaged with technological solutions, which enables people to go into

communities to service farmers. Through partnerships and mentoring of new entrepreneurs,

Kuza aims to expand its reach of smallholder farmers in Kenya.

Micheni Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and

Irrigation (MoALFI)

Agricultural produce is a lot more than just for consumption. It is also a source of raw

material for trade, security, health, supporting manufacturing industries, and driving economic

activity.

Data and information are very important for the agricultural sector and need to be

captured and managed at all levels of government. The absence of good data leads to

reduced output and other challenges in the sector. With new technology, the government will

be able to capture data accurately and in real-time to move the industry forward.

Mary Nzomo, County Executive Committee, Representing the Council of Governors

Counties’ governments are key to catalyzing agriculture transformation and need to be

included in every step of the transformation process. Implementation of policies and strategies

take place at the county level which makes buy-in at this level critical for success. All

stakeholders in the ecosystem should therefore visit the counties.

The World Bank Group should develop a partnership agreement with the Council of

Governors. This would ensure that the scalable ideas and technologies generated from the

Challenge are implemented and showcased to other counties.

Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary, Agricultural Research, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,


All stakeholders need to support smallholder farmers and provide them with an

ecosystem that enables them to increase their income. The government aims to utilize

smart solutions for the fertilizer and seed subsidy program in order to reach the right farmers

with the right inputs. Integrating technology within the program will make it more transparent

and efficient.

The lack of information collection and data analytics is a major challenge in the sector.

Volumes of data have been generated from different government initiative. However, due to

fragmentation in industry, such data have not been combined and collectively assessed. There

is high demand for data to be concentrated and analyzed to facilitate informed decision-

making by the government. For example, in order to make the right interventions to mitigate

the current drought experienced by communities in the north of Kenya, the government needs

to collect data. Overall, the ecosystem as a whole needs to collaborate and consolidate data

to create synergies.

Key Learnings from Knowledge Sessions

Background of DAT Challenge and Conference - Vision of One Million Farmer

Initiative

Description

The session outlined the vision of the One Million Farmer Initiative, which aims to provide

solutions to the challenges faced by farmers by connecting them to a digital platform. The

platform will bring together different disruptive technology innovators to offer an end-to-end

platform solution keeping farmers’ challenges as a focal point. The Ministry of Agriculture,

Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI) of Kenya, along with the World Bank Group and

the Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility are the key partners of the initiative.


The World Bank is supporting two agricultural programs in Kenya; The National

Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project and The Climate Smart Project. The total

investment in these projects is USD 450 million and they have been rolled out in 45 counties

across Kenya; Nairobi and Mombasa counties are excluded as the scope of agricultural

activities in these areas is limited.

Through the One Million Farmer Initiative, the World Bank aims to reach one million

Kenyan farmers through disruptive agricultural technologies. By leveraging the platform,

innovators can scale up their businesses and provide products and services to farmers through

access to networking opportunities, knowledge and learning, data analytics services,

evaluation and learning, incubation services and financing and investment. It is the vision of

the World Bank to have the largest agri-tech incubator in Africa based in Nairobi. The World

Bank will therefore work with the government to ensure there exists a conducive environment

for growth of agri-techs. This should ultimately lead to significant increases in agricultural

productivity throughout the country.

Dr. Parmesh Shah

Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods and Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank

Group

DATs’ Role in the Kenyan context

Description

CTA, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation, in partnership with Dalberg

Advisors, presented the findings from their most recent study on Digitalization for Agriculture.

The study highlights the role digital agri-tech companies play in increasing profitability and

productivity of smallholder farmers by allowing them to leverage digital solutions in the

Kenyan context.


CTA, in partnership with Dalberg has been working on a project to assess the digital

agricultural ecosystem in Africa with a focus on six countries including Kenya. The project

focus is to find out ways through which DATs can scale sustainably. A thorough analysis of the

sector will provide data and specific recommendations that can move the sector forward. A

focus on Kenya is important as it has the highest penetration of digital agri-tech solutions in

Africa. This is largely driven by high levels of mobile phone penetration.

Preliminary findings show that approximately 370 digital agri-tech innovators are

currently active in Africa with advisory services being the most prominent digital agri-

tech services. In Sub Saharan Africa, 33 million smallholder farmers are registered for these

services. However, this number is to be taken cautiously as there are duplications and

registration does not imply use and impact. Only 33% of smallholder farmers are currently

engaged (active users) and it is therefore necessary to find a way to address the gap between

registration and use. Furthermore, only 24% of the registered farmers are women yet around

50% of all smallholder farmers in Africa are women.

Collaboration between different ecosystem actors including government, investors, and

innovators is critical to ensure agri-techs scale sustainably. The project aims to come up

with recommendations on some of the areas that require collaboration as it shall highlight the

current state, challenges, and opportunities for the agri-tech sector.

Michael Hailu,

Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and

Rural Cooperation (CTA)

Michael Tsan,

Partner and Global Lead of ICT Practice, Dalberg

Knowledge Panel 1: Agricultural Productivity

Description

Panelists discussed the different types of digital solutions in the market that facilitate the

delivery of extension services, climate smart agriculture advisory, input services, mechanization

services, and data information services directly to farmers. The panelist also discussed the

impact that is derived from equipping farmers with such knowledge and education.

Panelists


Many of the productivity challenges that farmers face can be solved by analog solutions.

Analog solutions lay down the foundation to build digital technologies. It is important to have

the analog elements working well for farmers across the five key services - organization,

productivity, finance, marketing, and innovation - and harness digital tools to drive and scale

these. So far, the analog-side of agriculture has only produced annual single-digit productivity

growth for major crops. Harnessing digitalization is likely to provide enough disruption to lead

to double-digit growth.

Farmers need to shift their mindset. Currently across the value chains, many smallholder

farmers do not see their operations as a business. Until they change that mindset it will be very

difficult to get uptake of technologies and best practices. Improving financial literacy amongst

smallholders can contribute to overcoming this and enable them to make better decisions to

improve productivity.

There would be a significant increase in adoption amongst farmers if tailored

productivity innovations are provided for free. Currently, many large farms are utilizing

precision technology and other innovations because they see its value and they can afford it.

In contrast, there is low uptake from smallholder farmers because they cannot afford the

services. To address this, business models need to be continuously tested to ensure that their

offerings are affordable and accessible to smallholder farmers. Businesses can work with

development partners and NGOs to test this, and may require a subsidy to absorb the cost of

providing free services. Similarly, technologies can be used to drive service aggregation so that

Janalize Van

Buuren

East and

Central Africa

Divisional

Sales

Manager,

John Deere

John Logan

Country

Director –

Kenya,

TechnoServe

Shaun Ferris

Director of

Agriculture

and

Livelihoods

Program,

Catholic

Relief

Services

Tania

Lozansky

Global Head

of Advisory,

Manufacturin

g

Agribusiness

and Services,

IFC

Benjamin

Kwasi Addom

Team Leader –

ICTs for

Agriculture,

CTA

Boniface

Akuku,

Director of

ICT,

KALRO

farmers have access to more services at lower price points. In the sector, technology should

be harnessed to create inclusivity and not drive inequity.

The government needs better data to aid the scale up of services and improve

productivity in the sector. It will be very hard to achieve this without good data. For instance,

the public sector needs quality information on soil and weather systems, which have a direct

effect on farmer yields. Overall, there is a need for governments to stop being reactive to issues

in the sector and utilize data to become proactive and predict issues in advance.

Knowledge Panel 2: Market Linkages

Description

This panel explored the various disruptive agri-tech solutions that connect Kenyan farmers

willing to sell their produce, to buyers both in local and international markets. Bridging the

gap between buyer and seller is vital to fostering and increasing the economic activity and the

productivity of the agriculture sector, especially given the context where farmers currently

struggle to reach the market.

Panelists


Over 80% of smallholder farmers in Kenya sell their post-harvest produce. They sell to

both the formal and informal markets regardless of volumes. Market linkages to buyers in the

formal agricultural value chain by firms like Twiga and Tulaa as well as informal agricultural

value chains by Olam are crucial for the livelihoods of the smallholder farmers.

Kenyan farmers have for a long time experienced various challenges when it comes to

access to markets. Some of the most identifiable challenges have been poor infrastructure as

most farmers are in rural areas, unreliable middlemen when selling produce, lack of market

information, high transaction costs for access, lack of relevant processing facilities, seasonality

in production, inefficiencies in produce collection and aggregation, challenges in compliance

to safety and quality standards, lack of economies of scale, and unpredictable market.

Different challenges will call for different solutions. Various players in the agricultural

ecosystem are developing different solutions to eradicate some of the challenges. Safaricom

is partnering with agri-tech incubators through the DigiFarm platform to connect smallholder

famers to markets. Through its large customer base, its partners can now easily reach farmers

on the platform. Meanwhile, the Rockefeller Foundation, through the YieldWise Project is

providing farmers with solutions to their most pressing issues. The project is helping farmers

in the mango value chain in Kenya find a solution to losses caused by fruit flies. The foundation

has a goal to open the export market for farmers in Kenya through a partnership with Kenya

Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) to improve quality of produce and limit post-

Castro

Antwi-

Dandso Director of

Sales and

Marketing, ESOKO

Mary

Nzomo CEC,

Trans Nzoia

County

Betty

Kibaara,

Associate

Director,

Rockefeller

Foundation,

Africa

Region

Office

Benjamin

Makai,

Senior

Manager,

Technology

for

Development,

Safaricom

Mikael L.

Clason

Höök,

Mastercard

Foundation

Rural and

Agricultural

Finance

Learning

Sidhartha

Samal General

Manager, OLAM

harvest loss. For ESOKO and Olam, providing farmers with transparency in pricing of their

commodities is important. The firms are leveraging the prevalence of mobile technology to

optimize market linkages for farmers.

In addressing the challenge of unreliable middlemen, it is critical to remember they play

a very important role in the value chain given poor infrastructure in farming zones in

Kenya. Some strategies like contract farming, selling directly to the processors, ensuring

transparency in pricing and reducing the cost of production to create competitive markets can

go a long way to reduce challenges of unreliable middlemen. However, they cannot be entirely

eliminated from the value chain.

Generally, most new innovations across the value chain provide an array of bundled

services under one platform. Market linkages are bundled with advisory services as well as

data analytics services. Bundling of these services has reduced the time and expenses used by

the farmer in accessing innovative solutions.

Knowledge Panel 3: Farmer Financial Inclusion

Description

Panelists discussed digital innovations that give farmers access to various affordable financial

products. They also discussed the strides and gaps in access to credit, savings, insurance and

payment services that have been tailored to serve the needs of smallholder farmers.

Panelists


Farmer cooperatives (SACCOs) have vast amounts of untapped data on farmers.

Innovators can use the data generated by SACCOs to build credit profiles for farmers. For

instance, a model that is working for AGRA involves creating and integrating digital IT

platforms for SACCOs with M-pesa wallet. This enables farmers to apply for a loan and receive

it on their phone. Financial institutions that do not want to deal with the smallholder farmers

directly can provide wholesale financing to the SACCOs and SACCOs can lend to smallholders

through their channels.

Companies must take a farmer-centric approach in creating relevant products and

services to smallholder farmers. Currently, many large financial and non-financial companies

with digital platform do not know how to tailor their offering to smallholder farmers. Since

agriculture is a large market - with 70% of the working population in the sector - these

companies want to have a presence. To overcome this, they should listen to the farmers first,

identify their major pain-points, and then design their financial offerings accordingly.

A major financial pain-point for farmers is that they need cash immediately after a

harvest. Many farmers wait a long time before they receive payment from buyers. Some

buyers take advantage of the farmers immediate cash need and negotiate prices drastically

below market value. As a result, many farmers lose out on profitability. Technology platforms

can be used to track successful farm product deliveries and the quantities delivered to create

a profile on the farmer. In return, banks and other financial institutions can provide credit to

farmers to relieve them of their immediate post-harvest cash needs.

Leesa Shrader

AgriFin

Accelerate

Program

Director,

Mercy

Corps/AFA

Lucas Meso

Managing

Director,

Agricultural

Finance

Corporation

(AFC)

Reuben

Gicheha

Program

Officer –

Financial

Inclusion,

AGRA

Esther Kasalu-

Coffin,

Country

Director,

International

Fund for

Agricultural

Development

(IFAD)

It is important to note though that many farmers are nervous to take on debt. One

reasons for this is that they lack a clear understanding of the financial-side of their business.

Most farmers just want a savings product that smoothens their cash flow and would rather use

their own savings than take on loans. Studies also show that farmers would prefer to solve

issues in their operations such as climate change and pest disease to increase yield, before

turning to debt.

Knowledge Panel 4: Data Analytics and Intelligence

Description

Panelists discussed data sourcing, curation, data analytics and data insights as well as different

types of datasets such as farmer registry data/farmer profiles, field sensors data providing data

on soil, agronomy data from field trials, weather and climate data, remote sensing data, crop

surveillance data, pest and disease surveillance data. New innovations in hardware and

software agri-tech such as remote sensing, drones, machine learning, blockchain, AI and their

impact on the quality and quantity of data available to farmers were also discussed. In addition,

the panel explored how these new data sources can be used to improve the lives of smallholder

farmers.

Panelists


It is critical for farmers to have high quality, accessible and timely data on their farms.

To achieve this, there is a need to focus on specific farmer issues to tailor products and services

to their needs. This will ensure they make timely decisions on when, how and what to plant for

maximum yields and income.

The agricultural data ecosystem in Kenya is faced by various challenges. There has been

lack of integration of ground-truth data into decision making, lack of high-quality primary data

that is in granular form, information asymmetry, and difficulty in creating trust for usage of

data. In addition to that, there is a poor balance between amount of historical data and real

time data available. Historical data is useful for modelling but cannot be used to provide real-

time insights to farmers.

The One Million Farmer Initiative will help address some of these challenges. The World

Bank has developed a partnership with International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and

other key stakeholders to ensure they capture, analyze, and disseminate information to

farmers. In addition to that, the AgObservatory team from the World Bank in collaboration

with Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) will provide farmers with

Boniface

Akuku Director of

ICT, KALRO

Christophe

Bocquet Senior Data

Scientist &

Agritech

Lead, Dalberg

Data

Insights

Debisi

Araba Director,

International

Center for

Tropical

Agriculture

(CIAT)

Dr. Kala

Fleming Co-Founder

& Director, Diaspora AI

Dr. Ladisy

Komba

Chengula Lead

Agricultural

Economist –

Agriculture

Global

Practice, World Bank

Stewart

Collis Senior

Program

Officer –

Digital

Agriculture

Solutions, Gates

Foundation

access to a big data platform of all the counties in Kenya except for Mombasa and Nairobi.

The platform will provide agricultural data insights to the various agricultural sector

stakeholders ranging from farmers, policy makers, donors as well as private sector

organizations.

Investment Roundtable

Description

Panelist discussed issues around data, legislative environment, commercial viability, and risk

from the perspective of Development Finance Institutions, donors, and private investors – that

are preventing capital flows from entering the agriculture sector. In addition, the panel

discussed actionable solutions that can be leveraged by ecosystem players in order to unlock

systematic investments at scale into the sector.

Panelists


Large amounts of grants and donor capital in the agriculture sector can be a deterrent

for private/commercial investors. Due to efforts to reduce poverty and drive economic

growth in the sector, many grants have been distributed to prop up businesses. Such

businesses are not sustainable and considered a risk from the perspective of investors. As a

result, when evaluating investment options in the agriculture sector, investors assess whether

the underlying business model can survive long-term without donor capital. Those that can

are deemed to be worthy investments.

Blended finance options are helping to tackle the perceived riskiness of investing in the

agriculture sector. Public-private partnerships have been an effective finance option for de-

risking agriculture investments. By combining donor money with that of commercial

institutions, investors are more willing to include digital agriculture investments under their

portfolio that they would otherwise not.

Development partners can play a role in investing in early stage businesses. This is

important as there is a lack of seed capital available to business in Africa, which limits business

growth. At early stages in the business lifecycle, companies tend to raise capital from family

and friends to get their business going. However, in Africa there is a lack of wealth amongst

such groups which makes it difficult for businesses to secure funding. As a result, when raising

rounds from institutional investors, they are perceived as a risk. Institutions such as IFC are

overcoming this by investing in venture capital and private equity funds to enable them to

uptake these investments.

Anup Jagwani

Principal

Investment

Officer,

International

Finance

Corporation

(IFC)

Olukemi Dolly

Afun-Ogidan

Principal

Agribusiness

Officer,

African

Development

Bank

Sandeep

Khapre

CEO,

Binder Dijker

Otte (BDO)

Shudhan Kohli

Co-Founder and

CEO, Grey

Elephant

Ventures

Martine Jansen

Manager Data-

Driven

Innovation,

Rabobank

Foundation

Policies for Disruptive Agriculture Technology

Description

The objective of this panel was to get insights from all the key players of the ecosystem on

how to create an enabling policy environment for DATs to scale-up. The panellists discussed

the key policy constraints, priority areas for policy making as well as the general changes that

should be made to the policy making process in Kenya to ensure that the agricultural sector

has a conducive policy environment to encourage scale-up of DATs.

Panelists


The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation has a vision to make

Kenya a food secure country by encouraging an innovative, commercially aware, and

competitive agricultural sector. This has led to the establishment of the Agricultural Sector

Transformation and Growth Strategy by the Ministry. To support that, the president of Kenya,

His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta has committed himself to achieving 100% food and nutrition

security by 2022 under the Big 4 Agenda.

Several key policy constraints are holding Kenya back from harnessing the power of

DATs. There lacks a concise policy on collaboration, sharing, and digitization of data by key

agricultural sector players. Most agricultural departments especially in the government have

their records on paper which makes sharing of information resources with other stakeholders

very challenging. In addition, there is an increasing need on legislation of policies that can

solve issues of data privacy and ownership in Kenya.

It is critical to learn how to make policies that can adapt to the ever-changing

innovations in technology. One way of doing this would be making sure that ICT is at the

initiation of all government projects and hence all records are digitized. Furthermore, the

government should consider legislating collaboration among the various stakeholders in the

Prof. Hamadi

Boga, Principal

Secretary,

Ministry of

Agriculture,

Livestock,

Fisheries and

Irrigation

(MoALFI)

Andrew Karlyn,

Strategic &

Learning Lead,

AgriFin

Accelerate at

Mercy Corps

Mulat Demeke

Desta, Senior Policy

Officer, Food and

Agriculture

Organization

(FAO)

Philip Thigo,

Technical Advisor

- Data &

Innovation,

Office of the

Deputy President

Prof. Jerome

Ochieng,

Principal

Secretary,

Ministry of

Information,

Communication,

and Technology

(ICT) –

represented by

Mr Timothy Were

agricultural sector when it comes to sharing information/data. Involving the private sector and

DAT entrepreneurs in the policy making process would go a long way in ensuring policies can

last and adapt to new technologies. Legislation should also be elaborate, to ensure that issues

of data ownership and privacy are tackled.

Ignite Talk: Harnessing the Power of Communities


People at the base of the pyramid especially smallholder farmers, women and the youth

are equally engaged when it comes to the need for information. With everyone becoming

time poor, it is critical to find innovative ways to engage the people at the base of the pyramid.

Kuza Biashara has found new innovative ways to tackle this challenge. Some of their innovative

solutions include providing bite time learning through 2-3-minute videos which can be

uploaded on social media. This includes more than 40 million of video content for farmers in

different languages. Kuza also provides micro-learning, micro-distribution and micro-

mentoring to smallholders farmers in partnership with agencies like Syngenta Foundation.

One prevalent model to reach rural farmers is the Agripreneur model. The Kuza team uses

the process of selection, training, launching, mentoring and farmer engagement to grow

businesses. Their team goes from village to village to identify rural entrepreneurs, equip them

with the necessary skills for entrepreneurship, incubate them and support their businesses.

Some of the services they offer through this model are crop advisory and access to credit.

Sriram Bharatam,

Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited

Ignite Talk: Disruptive Technology as Game-changers for Small-scale

Agribusinesses


To take advantage of the growth in export markets globally, the Kenyan agriculture

industry needs massive investment and upgrade. There has been a 250% growth in demand

for avocados in the past few years and 70% growth in demand for the export market for

bananas, but growth in production in Kenya has been flatlining. Investment is needed to

strengthen infrastructure and have more people on the ground to boost production.

Upgrading the sector requires both hardware and software-based solutions.

Effectively managing cold-chain storage is important in being competitive in the export

and domestic market. Retaining product quality during the route-to-market, facilitates repeat

purchases and increases the likelihood of income growth. InspiraFarms addresses this directly

by supplying energy-efficient, solar-powered refrigerators, cold rooms, and modular

packhouses.

Tim Chambers Co-founder & Managing Director and founder, InspiraFarms

Ignite Talk: Revolutionizing the Use of Data for Policymaking (The Case of

Agriculture Observatory in Kenya)


The over-arching role of the AgObservatory in Kenya is to provide agricultural

intelligence for The World Bank and its partners. One of the goals of the Observatory is

tracking food and feed systems; both in the private sector, of which the information is

proprietary; and the public sector, of which the information is open/free access. The

Observatory also provides advanced indices and localized and timely insight for farmers to

ensure maximum production.

The Observatory partners with aWhere to process huge volumes of data. The data can be

obtained from both ground stations and satellites within a short period of time and processing

is done in real-time, providing agricultural ecosystem players with critical real-time data for

informing their decisions. Big data techniques such as machine learning algorithms are applied

to process the data.

In Kenya, the Observatory is working with KALRO to provide agronomical near real-time

insights for Kenyans. Through the KALRO website/app, farmers can access weather

information for any part of Kenya to help guide their farming decisions.

Dr. Erick C.M. Fernandes, Global Lead - Technology, Innovation, & Climate-Smart Agriculture, The World Bank Group

Closing Remarks

Simeon Kacou Ehui, Director, The World Bank Group

The Conference has highlighted key innovative agri-tech solutions that are tackling the

challenges of low productivity, constrained financial and market access and data

deficient decision making. The World Bank will launch the One Million Farmer Initiative in

Kenya and bring together the first cohort under the platform to reach one million smallholder

farmers. The Bank will also host similar Challenges in other African countries.

In line with the Digital Moonshot target for Africa, the World Bank has a vision of the

future Kenyan smallholder farmers. Before the planting season, they can use their mobile

phones to access real-time data on their farms, tailored farm advisory services, and receive

credit in their mobile wallet. During the planting season they can order tractors, mechanization

tools, and farm inputs on-demand. During the harvesting season, they can harvest at optimal

times receiving guaranteed prices on e-platforms and utilize energy-efficient storage on the

route-to-market. It is the hope that such a future will be realized through the One Million

Farmer Initiative.

Dina Umali-Deininger, Practice Manager, The World Bank Group

The World Bank recently launched a “Digital Moonshot" strategy. Through this strategy,

exceptional and coordinated efforts are being made to ensure that all Africans have universal

and affordable access to ICTs by no later than 2030. In Africa, President Kenyatta has

volunteered to be the first to sign up to the Digital Moonshot to support the Big 4 Agenda;

this means every farmer in Kenya will be digitally enabled by 2030. To achieve this, the

Conference and the One Million Farmer Initiative is the start to that, and the World Bank is

committed to helping Kenya achieve its goal.

Kenya is on a path to be a world leader in agri-tech. However, that will require collaboration

between the various players in the sector: government, public and private sector both across

Simeon Kacou

Ehui, Director,

The World Bank

Group

Dina Umali-

Deininger,

Practice

Manager, The

World Bank

Group

Prof. Micheni J.

Ntiba, Principal

Secretary -

Fisheries,

Ministry of

Agriculture,

Livestock,

Fisheries and

Irrigation

(MoALFI)

Dr. Parmesh

Shah, Global Lead for

Rural Livelihoods

& Agricultural

Jobs, The World

Bank Group

Mary Nzomo County Executive

Committee, Trans Nzoia

County

and within the sectors. The Ministry of Agriculture will have to work with DAT entrepreneurs

and other ecosystem players to ensure there is an enabling environment for entrepreneurship.

On the other hand, entrepreneurs will have to work with each other to leverage their strengths,

and financiers will have to work with innovators to help them scale up their technologies. If

this is achieved, then Kenya will easily have a thriving agricultural sector.

Dr. Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group

Both Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 members will be part of the One Million Farmer Initiative

by the World Bank. The initiative will have an agri-tech incubator in Kenya which will be the

largest incubator for DATs in Africa. The One Million Farmer Initiative will reach the farmers

under the two World Bank projects currently in Kenya through a digitally enabled platform. All

members on the platform will receive minimum incubation services and networking

opportunities. The Initiative will bring together a network of members from Africa and around

the globe and financing options will be discussed between the individual platform members

and the World Bank team. In the next three months following the conference, all Platform

members will be approached by the World Bank to develop a value proposition of how they

will work together to impact Kenyan farmers.

Mary Nzomo, County Executive Committees (CECs), Trans Nzoia County

County Executive Committees (CECs) are driving agriculture in the country. We have 47

CECs and they have a caucus which holds periodic meetings to discuss the way forward on the

state of the agriculture in the counties and the country at large. They are committed to work

with the World Bank to implement agricultural projects in the counties.

The vision of the counties is aligned with the Big 4 Agenda and both levels of

government are committed to providing an enabling environment for DATs. The counties

are looking up to the national government to create policies and are ready to implement them

for the counties. The promise of the counties is that they are ready to adopt DATs in their

implementation of agriculture strategy and support the national government in developing

the best environment for DATs. The two levels of government are not in competition and are

going to work together to reach farmers.

Prof. Micheni J. Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries

and Irrigation (MoALFI)

We are getting a solution to the many challenges of the Kenyan farmer through DATs.

The conference has been a first step towards achieving one goal in the Big 4 Agenda; food

security. The government and all other key stakeholders need to make a commitment that the

journey will not collapse and that all ideas discussed at the Conference will be implemented.

The national government is ready to work with the counties. The CECs are welcomed to

ensure both levels of government work together to have food security in the country. After

the Conference, there will be need to prepare an action plan that is shared by both levels of

government and the World Bank to ensure smallholder farmers are uplifted. The national

government called on the CECs to start developing their action plan with a specific timeline

for the agricultural sector.

DAT Challenge

Challenge Overview

The One Million Farmer Initiative in Kenya will work with multiple cohorts of 10-15 agri-

tech innovators over three years. The first cohort of DAT innovators was selected through a

pitch challenge competition during the DAT Innovation Knowledge and Challenge Conference

on April 5-6th, 2019. Future challenge rounds will invite additional applicants in 2020 and 2021.

The DAT innovators selected in the first cohort will receive performance-based awards

to support their scale-up and integration into the One Million Farmer Initiative. Equally

important, the selected innovators will receive in-kind support in the form of access to

knowledge, shared ecosystem and data services, and access to an expanded network of

partners including private investors, funders, agribusinesses, technical and business model

expert mentors, and government leaders. Those not selected as awardees (second cohort)

during the Challenge will still receive program support (training, mentorship, and connections

to networks; and will be eligible for joining the One Million Farmer Initiative program as full

partners if they meet eligibility criteria over time.

Overall, twenty-three DAT innovators pitched during the first DAT Challenge on April 5-6th,

2019. The innovator pitches were judged on their product/service quality, potential for scale-

up, impact potential, business model sustainability, and their ability/willingness to contribute

as partners to the DAT ecosystem generally and to the One Million Farmer Initiative platform.

Based on the results of the challenge, the 23 DATs were divided into two cohorts:

• ‘First Cohort of Innovators’ – These were the top ranked DAT pitches, who were

considered ready to join the platform. From the World Bank’s end, they will:

o Receive a performance-based grant when they achieve certain milestones

o Receive non-financial assistance in the form of incubation and mentorship

support, as well as connection to investors, agribusiness, and technical experts

o Be deployed directly within the World Bank One Million Farmer Initiative

project and have the chance to work closely with the Kenyan government

• ‘Second Cohort of Innovators’ – These were the top remaining DAT pitch participants.

They will:

o Receive non-financial assistance, including mentorship and coaching to help

them achieve the level needed to work directly with the World Bank on the One

Million Farmer Initiative

o Have the option to join the ‘First Cohort of Innovators’ once deemed ready

without going through another Challenge round

Thus, the conference lay the foundations for innovations to scale up in Kenya by connecting a

million Kenyan farmers to disruptive agricultural technologies through a platform.

Challenge Process

The DATs selected for pitching on the day of the Challenge had been through a rigorous

shortlisting process. This process was competitive as well as transparent. There were three

stages of the selection process:

Ecosystem players convening workshop: All DATs in Kenya had access to an open invitation

to the workshop in June 2018. Some of the Challengers attended the workshop, which brought

together various players in the agri-tech sector in Kenya and lay a foundation for the DATs

Challenge and Conference.

Online application: All DATs in Kenya had access to an online application. The deadline to

apply was 26th March. World Bank received 37 submissions by the deadline.

The DATs online applications were reviewed based on the following criteria:

• They are serving farmers in Kenya (or have clear intention to enter Kenya, but are

already serving farmers elsewhere)

• Have commercial orientation, or, at the very least, earned revenue elements in their

models or proven track record of donor and government support if they are non-

profits

• They are in validation/scaling stage of their business, not early stage pilots

• They clearly address one of the four 2019 DAT challenge themes

• They combine digital technologies, data analytics and innovations, IoT or innovative

business models and digital and analog outreach

• They are crop or commodity specific, or have track record delivering value for specific

crop value chains, except for financial inclusion track that could be more general

The World Bank team reviewed all 37 DAT submissions with an eye on these criteria and

shortlisted 25, with particular focus on three binding criteria – (i) a minimum scale of 3000

farmers, (ii) successful pilot or proof of concept (iii) technology-enabled disruption potential.

These 25 DAT submissions were invited to participate in a pitch bootcamp.

Pitch bootcamp: 24 out of the 25 invited DATs participated in the bootcamp. This was a 2-

day bootcamp (28/29 March), where the World Bank Group shared its vision of One Million

Farmer Initiative and DATs prepared their presentation for the day of the Challenge and

practiced their pitches. The DATs got feedback and support to structure their pitch towards

aligning with the One Million Farmer Initiative platform thinking.

Additional individual coaching sessions: Seven out of the 24 invited DATs took part in

additional individual pitch coaching sessions. They received feedback and support on various

aspects of their pitch, including content and presentation skills. Additionally, ~15 Challenge

participants did dry runs of their presentation with Dalberg support the day prior to the

Conference.

http://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2019/04/05/disruptive-agricultural-technology-challenge-and-conference#?cid=EXT_WBSocialShare_EXT

Challenge Track Descriptions

The DAT challenge participants were aligned against four themes/tracks namely – Agricultural

Productivity, Market Linkage, Farmer Financial Inclusion, Data Analytics and Intelligence.

Theme 1 - Agricultural Productivity Challenge

Context: The average productivity of major crops in Kenya has not increased at a sufficient rate

annually. Maize productivity, for instance, has increased by 17% over the last decade resulting

in an annual increase of only about 1.7%. Relative to the need to more than double agricultural

productivity by 2030 to meet national targets, this baseline pace of growth needs very

substantial acceleration (e.g., 5-10x) in coming years. There are multiple reasons why growth

in productivity has been slow such as – increased reliance on rainfed agriculture (98%), weak

reach and uptake of advisory and extension services, lack of access to climate-smart practices,

and – critically – limited access to improved agricultural production inputs (e.g., seeds, fertilizer,

pesticides) and mechanization for production (i.e., land preparation equipment like tractors

and irrigation). To reach their full potential, farmers need to have access to the latest

technologies and actionable information.

Some relevant disruptive technologies for this track include (i) digitally enabled agriculture

advisory services for smallholder farmers, including climate smart advisory (direct-to-farmer

digital advisory services or digital advisory services intermediated via agribusiness,

government, or NGO extension agents), (ii) digitally enabled models for linking farmers to

inputs like fertilizer, seeds, etc., (iii) digitally enabled models for linking farmers to production

stage machinery (e.g., uberized, shared economy, or PAYG models for irrigation and tractor

services), and (iv) agriculture hardware innovations at the agri-energy nexus (e.g., off-grid solar

powered irrigation equipment).

There were examples of each of these types of models among the pitch challengers with all

falling in two broad categories – (i) digitally enabled advisory players and (i) digitally enabled

market linkages to agricultural inputs (including mechanization inputs).

Key impact question/objective for this track: How will the DAT approach/innovation help

ensure Kenyan farmers have achieved disruptive changes in productivity (expressed primarily as

increases in yield) by gaining access to high quality digitally enabled advice/training/insights or

digitally enabled access to critical production inputs, including mechanization technologies.

Challengers

Agrics provides agricultural

products and services on credit

to smallholder farmers to

Digital Green uses a video

approach to amplify extension

providers’ effectiveness to improve

DigiCow provides extension services to

farmers using an innovative mobile

phone solution. They provide training

Farmers Pride leverages

technology and franchising

to break down barriers that

increase production and value

chain effectiveness. Agrics sells

high quality inputs; fertilizers

and seeds and provides farmer

tailored advisory services.

farmers’ livelihoods. They partner

with existing extension officers to

provide videos with highly

localized content, human

mediators to reinforce key

messages and use near real-time

data and feedback from farmers to

inform adjustments on the content

of the videos.

through a mobile app in which farmers

can also chat and share ideas. Voice-

based training coupled with SMSs is

provided to farmers without access to

smartphones.

have limited success of

farmers. They provide a one

stop village level online

mobile app/web platform

popularly known as

DIGISHOP that ensures

access to all the necessary

inputs, services and

information farmers need.

Hello Tractor connects tractor

owners to farmers through a

digital solution. They enable

farmers to request affordable

tractor services, while providing

enhanced security to tractor

owners through remote asset

tracking and virtual monitoring.

This value also extends to banks

financing tractors and dealers

who service them.

Precision Agriculture for

Development provides low-cost

mobile agronomic advice to

farmers that is accessible, relevant,

and customized to boost yields.

Sunculture offers solar-powered

irrigation systems to smallholder

farmers and helps provide financing

for acquiring these machineries to

smallholder farmers.

Waterwatch’s Crop Disease

Alert and Tracking solution

(CDAT) is a (smart)phone

application that combines

weather data, satellite

imagery, and pictures taken

by farmers with their

smartphones (image

recognition).

Theme 2 - Market Linkages (Off-taker Market Access) Challenge

Context: While 83% of the Kenyan farm households sell part of their crop production (the rest

are subsistence farmers that consume everything they produce), the majority of Kenyan SHFs

participate in poorly structured “loose” or “semi-loose” value chains rather than in “tight”

commercial value chains that are linked to large domestic or export-oriented buyers. This

means that most Kenyan farmers struggle to find guaranteed buyers for their produce (with a

range of downstream effects on their earnings). When they do sell their produce, Kenyan

farmers struggle to secure sufficiently high prices and lose substantial value to various

intermediaries between the farm gate and the end-buyer. Fast and reliable access to markets

is critical for Kenyan farmers’ success. Obstacles to such access include asymmetric information

on production volumes and prices, perceived or actual low quality of produce (from the

perspective of high value buyers), limited knowledge of and physical access to high quality

buyers/offtakers, and timing effects (e.g., markets exist, but farmer is unable to get produce to

the market at the right time).

Disruptive technologies for this track included a wide range of digitally enabled market linkage

(i.e., off-taker market access) models that match sellers with buyers, reduce information

asymmetries, or dramatically reduce the costs for agribusiness of formalizing and managing

previously loose smallholder value chains.

Key impact question/objective for this track: Given limited SHF linkages and access to

markets, how can the DAT solution facilitate market links between produce buyers and produce

sellers along the value chain?

Challengers

Farmshine's platform helps

smallholder farmers aggregate

and sell their harvests directly

to reliable commodity

companies.

Farmster is a digital

platform that operates

over an SMS Chatbot for

farmers and a mobile

Application for local

buyers. Farmers use the

Chatbot to answer basic

questions about their

expected harvest:

location, crop, expected

quantity, and harvest

date. Buyers receive this

information through an

app and directly reach

farmers.

M-shamba is a Nairobi

based Start-up that has

been working with

farmers across East Africa

to effectively deploy

farming technologies

among smallholder

farmers using basic

mobile phones. The

innovation focuses on the

use of simple phones

commonly known as

feature phones to deliver

vital information to the

smallholder farmers even

in remote areas.

TruTrade is a social

enterprise that digitizes

value chain

transactions making

rural agricultural

markets work better for

farmers, aggregators

and buyers. TruTrade’s

service provides

farmers with reliable

routes to market and

fair prices as well as

agribusinesses and

wholesalers with

traceable produce to

meet their quality

specifications.

Tulaa is a marketplace

for smallholder farmers

in Africa. Using mobile

technology and

artificial intelligence,

Tulaa provides quality

inputs like fertilizer on

credit, tailored advice,

and access to reputable

buyers to smallholder

farmers.

Theme 3 - Farmer Financial Inclusion Challenge

Context: Financial inclusion has significantly increased in rural Kenya. However, access to

agricultural finance for small and medium farmers is still limited in Kenya. Only 10% of the

smallholder farmers have access to financial services including credit and insurance (<4% of

SHFs). A growing number of Kenyan farmers, estimated at ~30% use mobile money for

payments, but very few (<5%) consistently pay for their inputs or sell their produce via mobile

money transactions. The quantity of credit is also inadequate with only 4% of credit supply

flowing to the agriculture sector. Many factors have hampered access to financial

services. These include lack of reliable data to support agricultural lending decisions, lack of

collaterals to secure financing, the high transaction cost of accessing and delivering financial

services to rural areas, and lack of data platforms for assessing risk and delivering financial

services (e.g., high costs of traditional claims processing for agri insurance). Additionally, the

high cost of credit translates into a lack of demand for credit by farmers.

Disruptive technologies for this track included a range of fintech models. For credit and

insurance products, these DAT models typically incorporate digital channels and new types of

data (e.g., weather, soil, crop yield estimation, etc.) for identifying new customers, assessing

customer risks, developing/designing new financial products, monitoring and mitigating

portfolio risks, managing client relationships, and running other vital operations like credit

collections and insurance claims processing. The DAT solution providers are not necessarily

financial institutions themselves, many are data analytics and digitalization intermediaries that

work with financial institutions as their B2B clients to enable them to tap into new smallholder

markets, deploy new products, and reduce transaction costs and risks. In the payments and

savings space, financial inclusion DAT models typically include the use of digital payment or

digital savings accounts “agri-wallets” to improve farmer access to these vital financial services.

Key impact question/objective for this track: How can your technology help to expand

coverage of financial services to farmers, including credit, savings, insurance, and low cost

payments?

Challengers

ACRE is a service

provider that links

farmers to insurance

products so that they

can confidently invest

in their farms. ACRE

automates weather

risk modeling,

payments and

communication

through SMS and

USSD platforms,

claims calculations,

and disbursement

through mobile

money.

Arifu is a social

enterprise making it

possible for the least

served people to

access the knowledge

they need on financial

services from the

organizations they

trust on any mobile

phone. Arifu provides

both an education

technology platform

and a content

digitization service.

Cellulant has built a

blockchain based smart

contracting and customer

relationship management;

connecting them to market

and helping them sell their

goods to a diverse range of

corporate buyers. Birthed

in Nigeria and nurtured in

Liberia, this platform

(Agrikore) gives the

farmers access to financial

services and government

subsidy programs to help

reduce their costs and

increase yields.

Agri-wallet is a platform that

enables financial inclusion of all

value chain actors around


Juhudi Kilimo is a

financial services

provider to rural

smallholder farmers and

micro-entrepreneurs

with operations in 34

locations across 24

counties in Kenya, it

operates through

Grameen model.

Theme 4 - Data Analytics and Intelligence Challenge

Context: The rapid development of data infrastructure, profusion of digital technologies, and

low-cost precision agriculture devices (ICT, Drone Aerial Surveillance, Satellite GIS, Weather

Data Analytics, Blockchain, Internet of Things) in Kenya has the potential to deliver farm-level,

geospatial, and real-time analytics to inform policies and targeted investments by

governments, agribusinesses, and various types of intermediary service providers. In many

cases, generating and accessing large scale national data sets is a costly challenge for any

individual player in the market. In other cases, even when data is affordable, it is simply not

accessible and not shareable across silos (e.g., private sector data sets that companies may

have few incentives to share with the broader ecosystem). Certain types of data have strong

public good components and rely on substantial upfront investments into data capture and

analytics infrastructure that the private sector may be unwilling to subsidize (e.g., weather data,

soil data). Finally, many Kenyan agriculture ecosystem actors lack the scarce data analytics and

big data science skills that capturing, cleaning, and analysing large agriculture and agronomy

data sets require.

Disruptive technologies that can address these challenges include new types of data collection

and data analytics players including those that focus on geospatial agronomy analytics (e.g.,

field trial, crop testing data), weather and climate data, soil data, drone surveillance data, or

models that integrate across a number of different data layers to generate insights that can

feed into various downstream use cases including advisory services, macro agri intelligence,

and financial inclusion models.

The DAT challenge participants covered several of these models including, most notably, the

sourcing and analytics of geospatial satellite and drone data, as well as weather and soil data

analytics.

Key impact question/objective for this track: How can your DAT innovation enable the large-

scale collection, analysis, visualization and deployment of high-resolution, high-frequency, and

low-cost agricultural data by public and private entities to enhance sector intelligence and

farmer services?

Challengers

Agrocares offers a unique

operating system

combining agronomic

knowledge (in a smart

phone) application,

inhouse developed sensor

technology, databases for

soil, feed and leaf and deep

learning algorithms.

Astral Aerial is a drone

operator. Offers up to date,

problem-specific data to

farmers using drones (a

drone covers 1000 acres per

flight, with sensors to detect

crop health at an affordable

price).

Capture Solutions

enables digital

payment and

advances to small

scale farmers

through a fully

traceable supply

chain with an easy

to use solution.

Oakar’s solution package offers

farmers and other stakeholders

access the latest knowledge,

training, practices, data and

mechanization best suited for

them. Oakar’s Analytics platform

incorporates dynamic datasets

that can provide market

information and facilitate easy

links between producers and

markets.

UjuziKilimo provides

a simple and fast

way for smallholder

farmers to monitor

soil fertility.

UjuziKilimo’s

proprietary Sensor

technology SoilPal is

a GPS and internet

enabled device with

sensors that is used

in farms to monitor

the levels of macro

nutrients, weather,

soil pH and moisture

content which

directs water, lime

and fertilizer

nutrient application

rates based on local

requirements.

Jury Composition and Judging Criteria

The Jury: The Challenge was judged by a 5-member jury on the first day of the conference

(April 5th) and a 5-member jury on the second day of the conference (April 6th).

The jury members included:

DAY 1 (April 5Th)

Day 2 (April 6Th)

The World Bank team, in collaboration with Dalberg and discussions with other partners,

aligned on eight individual criteria and two group summary criteria for judging the Challengers

based on factors that show readiness to be part of the One Million Farmer Initiative. The eight

judging criteria included:

1. Product/service quality

• The product addresses the challenge core question (see challenge track

descriptions)

• The product meets a pressing market need and/or major obstacle for ag

transformation

• The product has strong additionality relative to other solutions

Vikas

Choudhary

Senior

Agricultural

Specialist, The World Bank

Group

Benjamin

Makai Senior

Manager,

Technology for

Development, Safaricom

Anup Jagwani Principal

Investment

Officer,

International

Financial

Corporation

(IFC)

John Kimani Project

Coordinator, National

Agricultural and

Rural Inclusive

Growth Project

(NARIGP)

Shaun Ferris Director of

Agriculture and

Livelihoods, Catholic Relief

Service

Joanne Gaskell Senior

Agriculture

Economist,

The World Bank

Group

Klaus Tilmes Senior Advisor, The World Bank

Group

Leesa Shrader AgriFin

Accelerate

Program

Director,

Mercy Corps

Sandeep

Gondhalekar Chief

Transformation

Officer, Kuza Biashara

Tom Dienya Head of

Agricultural

Stats, Kenya

Climate Smart

Agriculture

Project (KCSAP)

• Clarity of the product value proposition for smallholder farmers, agribusinesses,

and other SHF value chain intermediaries (in the case of B2B products and services)

• Quality of the product/service vis-à-vis market alternatives

2. Scalability

• There is evidence that the product/service can achieve substantial scale (3-5X of

current size) or (in rare instances) has already reached very substantial scale in

Kenya

• Jury’s assessment is that the scale up plan is realistic

• Product has competitive positioning vis-à-vis other offerings

• Scalability is not focused on number of registered farmers but rather farmers who

are actively engaged and using product

3. Ecosystem engagement

• Readiness and willingness to collaborate/partner with others on the One Million

Farmer Initiative platform

• Willingness to generate and share public goods, particularly data public goods,

with others on platform and/or broader ecosystems (e.g., anonymized farmer

registry data, soil mapping data, GIS data)

4. Impact

• Proven impact either at pilot or broader deployment scale that includes

achievement of key impact objectives, with precise details varying by track, but

translating into improved productivity, income, resilience of farmers

• Where known, impact is proxied by evidence from internal or external evaluations

with the gold standard being independent third-party evaluations (internal M&E

metrics considered but given lower weight)

• Track specific impact metrics to consider include:

o Agricultural Productivity

▪ Improvement of yields

▪ Outcome level proxies

• Improved farmer knowledge/awareness of good agricultural

practices, improved decision quality, etc.

• Labour-, input-, resource efficiency, and time savings due to

access to mechanization technologies

• Increased uptake and use of production input volumes

relative to baselines

o Market Linkages

▪ Improved farmer incomes/profits


• Marketed volumes

• Access to better and/or more guaranteed prices

• Lower cost for off-taker in reaching and managing farmer

• Inclusion in more formal / commercial value chains

o Farmer Financial Inclusion

▪ Improved yields

▪ Improved income


• Farmer access to payments, credit, insurance vs market

alternatives

• Cost of financial products relative to market

• Reduction in risks and costs for finance providers due to B2B

fintech products and services

• Farmer access to more formal financial services

o Data Analytics and Intelligence

▪ Improved yields and incomes as a result of better decisions being

made by decision makers across value chains (i.e., better market

planning, better resource allocation, etc.)


• Greater availability of and access to valuable data (e.g., high

frequency, real time, farm or field level, unique depth such

for soil diagnostics, etc.)

• Lower cost of data access

• Quality of data relative to market

5. Business model sustainability / financial viability

• For commercial DAT solutions, business model sustainability is defined as the

likelihood that the proposed model/approach will be commercially viable i.e., has

potential to breakeven and ideally is already profitable

• For non-commercial or blended model, business model sustainability is defined as

the ability to generate at least some earned revenues and to fill the gap with

substantial on-going government or donor results based funding based on the

outcomes of the products/service

• Relevant considerations for commercial financial viability include:

o Evidence of profitability or clear path to profitability

o Clearly defined revenue / monetization model with some evidence that the

model is supported by market realities

o Funding raised to date to fuel business expansion and growth

• Relevant considerations for non-commercial or blended models include:

o Significant donor/govt funding secured for scale / expansion

o Long track record of successful fundraising

o Evidence of / compelling plan to increase earned revenue to meet any grant

revenue shortfalls

6. Pitch delivery

• The overall pitch should be clear and informative

• Pitch should be engaging and interesting

• Presenter is confident

• The visual aids are clear and easy to understand

Finally in order to ensure that the Challengers would most benefit (from) the platform, two

additional criteria were used:

7. Company will benefit most from the platform

• The company will benefit the most from financial and incubation services

8. Company that offers the most value-add to the farmers on the platform

• The company is answering the most pressing needs of farmers (focus on priority

crop, or major farmer pain-point)

Selection of the First Cohort of DAT Innovators by the Jury

Challengers were ranked and evaluated on each criterion by each jury member on the basis

of information available in challenger dossiers, pitch presentations, responses to jury questions

during pitch discussions, and jury members expert judgement of DAT business models and

sector trends. The eight criteria were weighted based on the level of their importance for the

One Million Farmer Initiative program design. Jury deliberations followed each pitching

session to compute average scores as well as a rank ordering of challengers.

Based on normalized scores, the first cohort of DATs selected were:

Agricultural Productivity Theme

Digital Green uses a

video approach to

amplify extension

providers’ effectiveness

to improve farmers’

livelihoods. They partner

with existing extension

officers to provide

videos with highly

localized content,

human mediators to

reinforce key messages

and use near real-time

data and feedback from

farmers to inform

adjustments on the

content of the videos.

Farmers Pride

leverages technology

and franchising to

break down barriers

that have limited

success of farmers.

They provide a one

stop village level

online mobile

app/web platform

popularly known as

DIGISHOP that

ensures access to all

the necessary inputs,

services and

information farmers

need.

DigiCow provides

extension services to

farmers using an

innovative mobile phone

solution. They provide

training through a mobile

app in which farmers can

also chat and share ideas.

Voice-based training

coupled with SMSs is

provided to farmers

without access to

smartphones.

Precision Agriculture for

Development provides

low-cost mobile

agronomic advice to

farmers that is

accessible, relevant, and

customized to boost

yields.

Sunculture offers solar-powered

irrigation systems to smallholder

farmers and helps provide

financing for acquiring these

machineries to smallholder

farmers.

Market Linkages Theme

M-shamba is a Nairobi based Start-up that has

been working with farmers across East Africa

to effectively deploy farming technologies

among smallholder farmers using basic mobile

phones. The innovation focuses on the use of

simple phones commonly known as feature

phones to deliver vital information to the

smallholder farmers even in remote areas.

TruTrade is a social enterprise that

digitizes value chain transactions making

rural agricultural markets work better for

farmers, aggregators and buyers.

TruTrade’s service provides farmers with

reliable routes to market and fair prices

as well as agribusinesses and wholesalers

with traceable produce to meet their

quality specifications.

Tulaa is a marketplace for smallholder farmers in

Africa. Using mobile technology and artificial

intelligence, Tulaa provides quality inputs like

fertilizer on credit, tailored advice, and access to

reputable buyers to smallholder farmers.

Farmer Financial Inclusion Theme

ACRE is a service provider that links farmers to

insurance products so that they can

confidently invest in their farms. ACRE

automates weather risk modeling, payments

and communication through SMS and USSD

platforms, claims calculations, and

disbursement through mobile money.

Arifu is a social enterprise making it

possible for the least served people to

access the knowledge they need on

financial services from the organizations

they trust on any mobile phone. Arifu

provides both an education technology

platform and a content digitization

service.

Agri-wallet is a platform that enables financial

inclusion of all value chain actors around


Data Analytics and Intelligence Theme

Astral Aerial is a drone operator. Offers up to

date, problem-specific data to farmers using

drones (a drone covers 1000 acres per flight,

with sensors to detect crop health at an

affordable price).

Oakar’s solution package offers farmers

and other stakeholders access the latest

knowledge, training, practices, data and

mechanization best suited for them.

Oakar’s Analytics platform incorporates

dynamic datasets that can provide

market information and facilitate easy

links between producers and markets.

UjuziKilimo provides a simple and fast way for

smallholder farmers to monitor soil fertility.

UjuziKilimo’s proprietary Sensor technology

SoilPal is a GPS and internet enabled device with

sensors that is used in farms to monitor the levels

of macro nutrients, weather, soil pH and moisture

content which directs water, lime and fertilizer

nutrient application rates based on local

requirements.

Partners

The World Bank Group

The World Bank works with low and middle-income countries and partners to provide

innovation and resources so that the food system lifts people out of poverty, produces safe

and nutritious food for all, and is more sustainable and resilient in the face of resource

constraints and climate change.

Learn more: www.worldbank.org/agriculture

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). The facility’s overall objective is to assist developing

member countries of the WBG in achieving inclusive and sustainable economic growth and to

foster broader dialogue on economic development issues. The facility supports a broad range

of economic development opportunities with a focus on promoting best practices by

leveraging the WBG’s knowledge and convening power and Korea’s expertise. The

Government of Korea provided US$90 million from FY14 to FY16 and a replenishment of

US$90 million from FY17 to FY19 through this facility.

Learn more: http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/korea-world-bank-group-partnership-

facility

The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

The ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation has a vision to have a secure and

wealthy Nation anchored by an innovative, commercially oriented and competitive agricultural

sector. To achieve its vision, its strategic objectives are to create an enabling environment for

Agricultural development, to increase productivity and outputs in agricultural sector, to

enhance national food security, to improve market access and trade and to strengthen

Institutional capacity

Learn more: http://www.kilimo.go.ke/

The United Nations Partnership for SDGs Platform

The Partnerships for SDGs online platform is United Nations’ global registry of voluntary

commitments and multi-stakeholder partnerships made in support of sustainable

development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The Partnerships for SDGs

platform also facilitates the sharing knowledge and expertise among multi-stakeholder SDG-

related partnerships and voluntary commitments, and for providing periodic updates on

their progress.

Learn more: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnerships/

http://www.worldbank.org/agriculture

http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/korea-world-bank-group-partnership-facility

http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/korea-world-bank-group-partnership-facility

http://www.kilimo.go.ke/

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnerships/

Kuza Biashara

Kuza Biashara is an organization offering small business learning, training and empowerment

in Africa. The organization is based in Nairobi, Kenya. It is a mobile first micro-learning

platform offering youth, women & micro-entrepreneurs from informal communities

opportunities to learn, connect & grow on their own terms and at their own convenience.

Learn more: http://www.kuzabiashara.co.ke/

Dalberg Advisors

Dalberg Advisors is a strategic advisory firm which brings the best of private sector strategy

skills and rigorous analytical capabilities with deep knowledge and networks across

emerging and frontier markets. We work collaboratively across the public, private and

philanthropic sectors to fuel inclusive growth and help clients achieve their goals.

Learn More: https://www.dalberg.com/what-we-do/dalberg-advisors

http://www.kuzabiashara.co.ke/

https://www.dalberg.com/what-we-do/dalberg-advisors

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