Transforming Agriculture with DPI - The “Why”
Agriculture is key to the African economy and is a primary source of livelihood for most of the populations. To leverage the advancements made by DPI in recent years and to create an inclusive and innovative digital knowledge economy towards climate-resilient Agriculture, it is imperative to empower farmers with necessary tools and knowledge, along with necessary opportunities for market linkages and credit sources. This necessitates the need for a “Global DPI-based Digital Agri-transformation effort”; by enabling open & decentralised agro-networks that are underpinned by a universal suite of open protocols & data standards. Smallholder farmers produce a large part of Africa’s food supply. However, they face multiple challenges at production and marketing levels, hindering their productivity and livelihoods, including limited access to markets, agricultural inputs, credit, and technologies. Uneven access to agricultural extension services significantly hinders smallholder farmers' ability to address these challenges.
Building on the foundation of robust people-networks that exist today - The Kuza Youth Agripreneur Model
In response to this, an Agri-tech social enterprise Kuza Biashara - a smallholder farmer ecosystem management platform that leverages the last mile entrepreneurial agents to increase the income of smallholder farmers at scale, in Africa & Asia - has been at the forefront of providing innovative solutions for off-grid farmers through micro-learning, micro-distribution, and micro-mentorship. Through its Rural Entrepreneur Development Incubators program (REDI), Kuza trains young people from rural communities to become agripreneurs. Agripreneurs join Kuza’s OneNetwork, a digital marketplace, to connect with service providers and offer bundled services to smallholder farmers (e.g access to high-quality input, crop advisory, credit, and market linkages). Each agripreneur supports 200 smallholder farmers to help them boost their productivity and incomes. By actively assimilating farmer-voices through this model, Kuza has curated a massive library of content spanning across;
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bitesized HD video-based skilling content on entrepreneurship, soft & life skills in local languages
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good agricultural practices & climate smart technologies, regenerative agriculture practices for 40+ food crops, horticulture crops and livestock.
Kuza OneNetwork: A Connected Ecosystem for AgricultureBuilding upon the successful Kuza agripreneur model & OneNetwork, a vision for a DPI-effort in Kenya is being put forth on the table with critical sectoral stakeholders involved - incl. Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, KALRO, ASNET, among others - that aims to establish an open and federated transaction network (an expanded version of the Kuza OneNetwork). The OneNetwork is envisioned to create a seamless, interconnected ecosystem - bringing together farmers, agripreneurs, traders, suppliers, financial institutions, government bodies, and consumers. Kuza is spearheading the design & deployment of the OneNetwork across Kenya, with a Beckn protocol (a global DPG for transaction interoperability) powered approach; wherein it is proposed that the Agripreneur workforce will leverage a Kuza seeker platform to connect to & transact with a host of provider side platforms in the OneNetwork ecosystem, to fulfil several use cases in Agri-advisory, Agri-credit services, Agri-marketplace services, and furthermore (*a proposed vision is illustrated below) via this OneNetwork.
This model is centred around an ambition to accomplish the following policy goals:
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Enhanced market linkages to Agro-service providers to Local farmers
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Seamless discovery and access of farming inputs, credit services and equipment with price transparency
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Expanding interest among Kenyan youth to uncover rural entrepreneurship opportunities - via the “Agripreneur” model and DPI-tools like verifiable credentials (for skills & job-related efforts) and a Digital wallet.
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Strong data observability to aid a Government’s policy-driven farming practices and enabling Government, Academia and Civil society contributions to sustained innovations in the sector.
Scaling up Kuza OneNetwork adoption Globally
Kuza’s current adoption trajectory is shaping up as follows;
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The Kenya OneNetwork will be scaled up pan-country in ‘24-’25.
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This OneNetwork playbook for Agriculture will be explored for;
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expansion across the EAC region, in ‘25-26, with potentially a connected regional-marketplace in the offing.
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Kuza plans are underway in more territories - Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Nepal, Colombia, Brazil among others - with a DPI/Beckn enabled open transaction network model being a core pillar in the proposed Agri-DPI modernization strategies for those countries.
Kuza’s experience in Kenya, and other deployments in Africa & Asia - represents a unique worldwide opportunity to firmly establish & accelerate the DPI and Open Networks - in Digital Agriculture missions across the globe.