Watching\nhis parents’ banana harvest go to waste due to lack of market prompted John\nKinyua to develop Mkulima Bora app that paves way for farmers to have a direct\nlink between them and consumers. He explains the impact it has had so far on\nfarmers, especially maize farmers who are victims of post-harvest losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where did the idea to develop Mkulima bora come from?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Being farmers, my parents saw most of their products go to waste due to lack of a market. This made me realize that there was a challenge in finding the right market for farmers’ produce. With my knowledge in computer science, I decided to come up with Mkulima Bora app in 2014 to offer a connection between farmers and consumers across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s your business model and how do you make money?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Since we are dealing with farmers we charge a small subscription fee for service use on a weekly and monthly basis. We charge 50sh per week and 150 per month. However, for the first 6 months, the services in the app are free. We also have a library on the app where farmers can access e-books written by professionals for 200ksh. Since its commencement, the app has generated a good amount. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How is the farmers\u2019 reception of the app to date?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The\napp is used country wide. Farmers have really appreciated the services on the\napp. We serve more than 3000 farmers on the app and more than 11k on social\nmedia platforms. Small scale farmers use the app more as compared to large\nscale farmers. On a daily basis we have at least 200 users on average using the\napp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maize farmers face a lot of challenges after their harvest. How has Mkulima bora made things easier?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n From\nour data 1200 maize farmers have so far used the app. I would say this is\npromising because there are no middle men involved as has been in the\n“normal” way of selling things. The losses made are fewer as one can\nsell their produce at their convenient time other than sell due to a lack of\nstorage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apart from offering a marketing platform what else does Mkulima bora app do?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh\nyes! We have a digital library for farmers. This is in partnership with agro\nofficers where we share the revenue earned with them. By doing so this creates\nemployment while at the same time offering information to farmers in matters\nfarming. We are still expanding to become an end to end platform for farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the rise in cyber-crime attacks and threats, how does Mkulima bora ensure data security of its users?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well\nso far we have received no complaint from the app users. To put off jokers we\nalways demand phone verifications upon registration to put off criminals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What challenges have you experienced so far?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Financial constraints have been a persistent headache. Having to finance this venture from our pockets to see the services run has been tough. Secondly, Kenya\u2019s market is one that requires special attention if one is to make something meaningful from it. One needs to take time to understand the market. We have overcome this by selecting a research team that enables us to assist farmers to their satisfaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Final words<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Young\npeople have brilliant innovative ideas that need to be channeled towards\ncreating solutions that are ideal for our markets and which solve both economic\nand social problems. We nurture young innovators through an incubation program\ncalled JK Invent. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Watching his parents’ banana harvest go to waste due to lack of market prompted John Kinyua to develop Mkulima Bora app that paves way for farmers to have a direct…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-responsibility","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}