NAIROBI, Kenya, July 20 – The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) is banking on new technologies to improve service delivery to its over 600,000 smallholder farmers.
To achieve this, it has unveiled new communication channels such as a mobile application, Short Messaging Service (SMS), and an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) platform.
Tea farmers will now be able to receive daily, weekly, and monthly notifications on plucked tea weights and notifications on payments.
They will also be able to conduct queries on fertiliser disbursements, receive regular news updates from the organisation, and receive extension services.
“We are pleased to be rolling out our Mobile App, SMS, and USSD platforms in what is a deliberate endeavor to transform how we interact and engage with farmers,” KTDA Management Services Managing Director Julius Onguso said.
“By embracing and leveraging technology to enhance our communication and engagement with our farmers, we believe that this will enhance the transparency and credibility of all our undertakings for the farmers,” he added.
Currently, the app is available on the Google Play Store for download, having been first piloted across eight factories. An iOS version of the app is currently in development.
“This move is in line with the organization’s reforms trajectory which aims at ensuring farmers get the best value for their hard work – which extends to excellent and efficient service delivery, which is what we aim to deliver using these platforms,” Onguso said.
“This heralds the digital transformation of KTDA’s service offering to its farmers, which, we believe, will go a long way towards sustained efficiency.”
