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M-Farm is a tool enabling Kenyan farmers to get farming information by simply sending an SMS to 3555.Farmers get information the current retail price of their produces, buy their farm inputs directly from manufacturers at favorable prices, and find buyers for their produce.
The transparency tool for farmers beat 37 other ideas at a 48 hour boot-camp dubbed IPO48 competition where they raised €10,000 as capital investment.
MFarm uses SMS to serve farmers who have no access to internet to inquire current market prices of whatever crops or yields across the country. It also aggregate farmers supply needs or orders then connects them directly with farm input suppliers. It also enables farmers to sell their yields collectively and informs them where the demand for their produce is.
MFarm also ends the farmers dependency on middlemen who buy from the cheaply and hoard their produces to sell for higher prices later. Some farm produce buyers also take long to pay them while some suppliers sell equipment expensively and reap of farmers especially due to lack of information.
MFarm was founded in 2010 by the three girl team of Jamila Abass, Susan Eve and Linda Kwamboka.To prove they are right, IFAD, reports that nearly 80 per cent of Kenya’s population relies on farming as a source of income and live in rural areas, but most of them who are small-scale farmers and farm laborers have no access to farming information which might improve their yields. This farmers are also exploited by brokers who take advantage of their lack of market information and lack of transparency in the market.
