Mpesa Foundation….well, I had no idea about this but it is good that it is already doing some good work out there. So M-Pesa Foundation has entered into a partnership with M-Farm Limited, to improve agri-business among small scale farmers in the country. The partnership includes Kshs.20million grant to M-Farm to pilot the Farm Agent and Quality Control Model to deliver information and better prices to smallholder farmers through mobile technology
For those who have no idea M-Farm is a software company which links small scale farmers with the buyers from different parts of the country. The aim is to enable the farmers to get the best price for their produce without going through the middle men. Are the middle men that bad? Well, in most cases they have the information which enable them to exploit the farmers. In the strict sense of things, business is based on having that extra information especially the gap between the buying and the selling
M-Farm CEO Jamilla Abbas said: “This software will ensure that farmers are no longer exploited by middlemen who make away with all the profits leaving the small scale farmers with little if any income.”
The partnership is aimed at increasing transparency in the agricultural crop market and ensure best practices in agriculture using web and mobile, share crop prices throughout the country, train farmers and exchange platform for commodities.
This is the kind of news that Safaricom as a whole should be known for, not those ones of “they stole my idea”.
According to M-Pesa Foundation Executive Director Les Baillie:
“M-Pesa Foundation is bridging the digital divide between agricultural sector and the ICT sector by partnering with M-Farm Limited to support agribusiness. We are about transforming lives and we believe this will change the lives of farmers for the better,”