Summary Document April 2019

ContentsIntroduction.......................................................................................................................................4

Context...........................................................................................................................................4

Trends in DAT Innovation in Africa and Kenya.................................................................5

Vision of the One Million Farmer Initiative.........................................................................7

Conference Description and Agenda.......................................................................................9

Description....................................................................................................................................9

Agenda..........................................................................................................................................10

Welcome Remarks........................................................................................................................13

Welcome Remarks by Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation...........................................................................................................13

Welcome Remarks by Country Director, The World Bank Group.............................16

Key Points Discussed During the Welcome Remarks...................................................18

Key Learnings from Knowledge Sessions.............................................................................21

Background of DAT Challenge and Conference - Vision of One Million Farmer Initiative.......................................................................................................................................21

DATs’ Role in the Kenyan context.......................................................................................22

Knowledge Panel 1: Agricultural Productivity.................................................................23

Knowledge Panel 2: Market Linkages................................................................................25

Knowledge Panel 3: Farmer Financial Inclusion.............................................................27

Knowledge Panel 4: Data Analytics and Intelligence...................................................29

Investment Roundtable...........................................................................................................31

Policies for Disruptive Agriculture Technology...............................................................32

Ignite Talk: Harnessing the Power of Communities......................................................34

Ignite Talk: Disruptive Technology as Game-changers for Small-scale Agribusinesses...........................................................................................................................35

Ignite Talk: Revolutionizing the Use of Data for Policymaking (The Case of Agriculture Observatory in Kenya)......................................................................................36

Closing Remarks........................................................................................................................37

DAT Challenge................................................................................................................................40

Challenge Overview.................................................................................................................40

Challenge Process.....................................................................................................................41

Challenge Track Descriptions...............................................................................................42

Theme 1 - Agricultural Productivity Challenge...........................................................42

Theme 2 - Market Linkages (Off-taker Market Access) Challenge.......................43

Theme 3 - Farmer Financial Inclusion Challenge.......................................................44

Theme 4 - Data Analytics and Intelligence Challenge.............................................45

Jury Composition and Judging Criteria...............................................................................47

Selection of the First Cohort of DAT Innovators by the Jury......................................51

Partners............................................................................................................................................53

The World Bank Group............................................................................................................53

The Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility......................................................................53

The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI).............53

The United Nations Partnership for SDGs Platform.......................................................53

Kuza Biashara.............................................................................................................................54

Dalberg Advisors.......................................................................................................................54

IntroductionContext

The World Bank Group defines ‘Disruptive Agricultural Technologies (DATs)’ as digital and non-digital innovations that enable smallholder farmers to overcome their current constraints. The World Bank’s definition of DATs is a broad one, which takes into account the rapid evolution of underlying technologies and business models, as well as the need to tailor these technologies to specific market and value chain contexts. Relevant agricultural technologies include digitally-enabled advisory and climate information services, digitally enabled services that link farmers to production inputs (including mechanization), digitally-enabled services that link farmers and their produce to buyers and markets, macro agriculture decision intelligence tools that can inform government, funder, and agribusiness resource allocation decisions, and data intermediary services that collect and analyze farm or farmer data as an input into downstream decisions and use cases (e.g., drone farm surveillance, weather data analytics, satellite crop monitoring, pest & disease surveillance systems). Beyond such agri-tech products and services, other in scope include agri-energy nexus products (e.g., solar off-grid irrigation, processing and cold-chain solutions), portable agriculture diagnostic tools (e.g., crop, soil, agricultural input diagnostic equipment), and bio-fortified foods.

DAT innovations provide many benefits to smallholder farmers and agribusinesses and help them to optimize their operations and improve productivity. While traditional solutions have only produced single-digit annual productivity growth for major crops, DATs have the potential to provide enough disruption to lead to double-digit productivity growth. These innovations directly address critical constraints that farmers face such as low yields, lack of access to markets, and inability to access credit finance. DATs can be a tool to improve yields via tailored advisory services using farm-specific data. They can also enable farmers to access a range of buyers locked in at good price points and increase transaction transparency in the process. Digitally tracking transactions and farm-specific information, can assist the credit vetting process undertaken by financial institutions and potentially lead to increased access to capital. As such, DAT innovations enable smallholder farmers and agribusinesses to scale-up and improve their productivity, profitability, and competitiveness.

DATs also have the potential to energize African agriculture by drawing in youth. In Africa, about 70% of the population is under 30, with the youth population growing faster than any other region.1 This further exacerbates the concern about the increasing youth unemployment rate. High youth employment results in several challenges such as reduced economic growth, increased crime rates, and poverty traps. DAT innovations can help to mitigate this as they create many new, higher quality jobs in the agriculture sector like farmer surveillance and data analysis.

1 World Economic Forum, “These are Africa’s fastest-growing cities – and they’ll make or break the continent” 2016.

Trends in DAT Innovation in Africa and KenyaOver the past two years the number of African DATs has multiplied. Demand for region-specific innovations and a conducive enabling environment in certain cities and countries has spurred this growth. Additionally, DATs in Africa are currently at an inflection point where the falling cost of technology is allowing scalable innovations. For instance, cellular subscriptions are sky-rocketing – with 420 million unique mobile subscribers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and mobile internet penetration reaching 240 million people (26% penetration in SSA) in 20162. The emergence of these technologies has generated a new genre of entrepreneurs who are responding to the local needs and contexts of Africa’s unique food market. Nurturing this wave of DAT entrepreneurs to help new innovations reach scale would allow African food systems to leapfrog the innovation gap.

Despite the proliferation of DATs in SSA’s agriculture sector, DATs are yet to witness systematic and large-scale adoption. According to the Kaufmann Foundation, only 1.1% of technology innovation start-ups across all sectors scale-up.3 Crucial to scaling up innovations is the “innovation ecosystem” – an environment that enables entrepreneurs to engage in iterative processes.4

This includes support structures that can enable smallholder farmers to adopt new technologies, investments in basic infrastructure (roads, bridges, storage, etc.) and technology infrastructure (broadband and connectivity), and policies such as tax incentives or spectrum management to ensure connectivity in rural areas for last mile delivery.5 Scaling up also requires an ecosystem in which actors including governments, companies, investors, and development partners can collaborate to provide support to technology innovations across their life cycles.

The potential impact of DATs is especially promising in Kenya, where the agriculture sector employs 40% of the total population and more than 70% of the rural people.6 The importance of the agriculture sector in Kenya has been emphasized by the President’s Big 4 Agenda7 and Vision 2030.8 Given the objective to achieve full food and nutrition security in the country, there has been demand to transform the sector. Currently the agriculture sector directly contributes 26% to Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and a further 27% indirectly through the manufacturing, distribution, and service sectors. 6Given the contribution of smallholder farmers in the sector it is imperative for them to have the right knowledge, tools, and resources to drive growth in the sector and DATs have the opportunity to accelerate this linkages.2 GSMA Intelligence, “The Mobile Economy Sub-Saharan Africa”, 2017 https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=7bf3592e6d750144e58d9dcfac6adfab&download 3 Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, “Kaufmann Index of Growth Entrepreneurship”, 2017

https://www.kauffman.org/kauffman-index/reporting/-/media/8cbc2c338f81411ab3ac9a39b94c2ffa.ashx

4 World Economics Forum, “Innovation with a Purpose”, 20185 World Bank Group, “Enabling the Business of Agriculture”, 20176 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “The agriculture sector in Kenya”7 The Big 4 https://big4.president.go.ke/8 Kenya Vision 2030 https://vision2030.go.ke/

Kenya is leading the agricultural technology space in Africa as one of the top-rated digital ecosystems on the continent.9 The country has the third largest tech incubation and acceleration hub in the region.10 Additionally, mobile connectivity and high penetration rates contributes to the success of Kenya in the agricultural technology landscape. Kenya has some of the highest levels of mobile connectivity (i.e., 85-90% penetration of unique mobile subscribers vs. 44% on average for SSA region).11 The country is also characterized by a robust mobile money ecosystem, with over 70% of the population using mobile money regularly.12 Meanwhile, in 2017, the mobile penetration rate in Kenya was 59% compared to 44% average for SSA13, with 30% of rural population owning smartphones while 72% own feature phones. 14

Importantly, approximately 30% of agri-tech start-ups in the SSA region are operating in Kenya and 18% are headquartered there.15 Using a broader definition of agri-tech, McKinsey estimated that 25% of all agri-tech startups were likewise headquartered in Kenya in 2017. This new genre of DAT innovators is thriving. They recognize unique local contexts and are successfully using cutting-edge technologies to cater to Kenyan smallholder farmers and smallholder farmer-facing intermediaries like agribusinesses, financial institutions, farmer cooperatives, and NGOs.

The timing for DATs to scale-up is ripe in Kenya. Many Kenya-focused DATs have successfully piloted their solutions and are starting to invest in scale-up activities. So far two players (WeFarm and Safaricom’s Digifarm) have broken the 1 million farmers’ barrier. Falling technology cost as an industry trend and evolution in business models are further moving the sector to a tipping point.

Nonetheless, due to a range of ecosystem challenges, many DATs are still constrained. An assessment conducted by the World Bank Group found DATs are particularly limited in their economics, impact, and scale. The challenges that underpin this occur across the ecosystem. There is demand for increased policy clarity and support for DATs in Kenya. Additionally, early-staged innovators have difficulty securing funding as there are deemed to have higher risk models. They also lack access to high quality and low-cost data public goods such as weather data, farmer registries, and soil data. Critically, a major challenge constraining DATs is an absence of linkages between them and existing agribusiness platforms and players. This is key because these platforms and players have access to large numbers of smallholder farmers that DATs can leverage on.

9 Kenya is rated #5 in Africa in the WB Digital Adoption Index (2016), #2 in HBR Digital Evolution Index (2017), #2 in the region based on the global Enabling Digitalization Index (2018)

10 In 2018 Kenya was rated third in the SSA region based on the number of tech incubators and accelerators (30) out of the 400+ tech incubator/accelerators in Africa (GSMA)

11 GSMA, “The Mobile Economy Sub-Saharan Africa 2018”, 201812 Central Bank of Kenya, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and Financial Sector Deepening -

Kenya, “FinAccess Household Survey”, (2018)13 GSMA, “Accelerating Affordable Smartphone Ownership in Emerging Markets”, 201714 Deloitte, “Game of Phones: Deloitte’s Mobile Consumer Survey. The Africa Cut 2015/2016”, 201615 Preliminary findings from CTA/Dalberg report on “Digitalisation for Agriculture – Africa", 2019

Vision of the One Million Farmer Initiative

The World Bank believes that a vibrant innovation ecosystem is crucial to the scaling of DATs. To achieve this, systematic investments in knowledge, innovation, policies, capital, and incubation are all needed in the country. It must enable innovators to engage in iterative processes to improve their technologies and business models, prove out their impact and return on investment, and rapidly extend their reach.16 Kenya already has a budding innovation ecosystem as evident from the sudden surge in DATs in recent years. This existing system now needs to be harnessed to drive the scale-up of DATs.

The World Bank along with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI) and Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility is launching the One Million Farmer Initiative. It is a three-year partnership that will link one million Kenyan farmers, across 14 different agricultural value chains and 45 counties in Kenya, to a digitally-enabled platform. The platform will integrate and coordinate the activities of leading Kenya-focused DATs. The One Million Farmer Initiative will build on and link to existing World Bank programming in Kenya, most notably the Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project (KCSAP) and the National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project (NARIG). Both projects support more than a million farmers, with aggregate investments of $450 million.

Through partnership collaboration, the One Million Farmer Initiative will bring together a group of best-in-class DATs in Kenya and link these innovators to experts, investors, agribusinesses, and government partners at national and county levels. All activities will be centred on a common mission of delivering value to one million Kenyan smallholder farmers (and related intermediaries) covered by the program. A secondary objective is to create demonstration effects to validate the replication of this digitally-enabled innovation ecosystem platform in other geographies beyond Kenya. Currently, the World Bank envisions extending the initiative to an additional 8-10 African countries drawing on lessons learned in Kenya.

Through the One Million Farmer Initiative, the World Bank believes that all ecosystem actors will achieve economies of scale in reaching smallholder farmers. The platform will enable DAT innovators to take advantage of large-scale identification, data collection, data analytics services (e.g. agronomy content and geospatial farm and soil maps), as well as digitized farmer profiles. As such, each ecosystem actor will save on undertaking these activities themselves or spending more in operating without this information. As a consequence, this will translate into improved business model sustainability for innovative DAT businesses.

Smallholder farmers will also receive a host of benefits derived from the One Million Farmer Initiative. They will have access to affordable services that address major pain-points in their operation. By up-taking the host of innovations on the platform, they will be able to increase their yields, receive financial services, access local and international markets, and many more. 16 World Economic Forum, “Innovation with a Purpose”, 2018

Ultimately, through optimizing their operations through innovations, smallholder farmers will benefit from increased income generation and poverty reduction.

Conference Description and AgendaDescription

The World Bank hosted the Disruptive Agriculture Technology Innovation Knowledge and Challenge Conference on April 5-6 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya. The aim of the conference was to mobilize knowledge for the One Million Farmer Initiative across four themes, namely Agricultural Productivity, Market Linkage, Farmer Financial Inclusion, and Data Analytics and Intelligence. Along with these four themes, the discourse also included sessions to promote conducive policies and investment climate (see conference agenda in the next section).

The Conference also included a challenge to mobilize innovators who would join the One Million Farmer Initiative’s platform as the ‘First cohort of innovators’. The Challenge saw leading DAT innovators pitch their strategies with the chance of receiving performance rewards, acceleration funding, incubation, mentoring, and financial support to scale up their innovations in Kenya. The Conference laid the foundation for the innovations to scale up in Kenya by connecting a million Kenyan farmers to disruptive agricultural technologies. Coming out of the DAT Conference and Challenge, further details of the One Million Farmer Initiative platform will be jointly designed by the innovators, partners, and funders involved over the next over the next 3 years.

AgendaDay 1: 5 April 2019, Friday

8:00 - 8:30 AM RegistrationWelcome Remarks

8:30 - 9:30 AM Welcomed by: Prof. Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI) & Jeehye Kim, Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group- Sidharth Chatterjee, United Nations Resident Coordinator - Edson Mpyisi, Chief Financial Economist and Co-ordinator Enable Youth Programme, African Development

Bank- Sriram Bharatam, Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited- Paolo Belli, Program Leader, Africa, The World Bank Group- Mary Nzomo County Executive Committee, Representing the Council of Governors- Micheni Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation

Background of DAT Challenge and Conference - Vision of One Million Farmer Initiative9:30 - 9:45 AM Dr. Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group

DATs’ role in the Kenyan context 9:45 - 10:15 AM Michael Hailu, Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA)

Michael Tsan, Partner, Dalberg10:15 -10:45 AM Coffee Break

Theme 1 – Agricultural Productivity

10:45 – 12:00 PM

Moderator: Dr. Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group & Michael Tsan, Partner, Dalberg

Knowledge Panelists:- Boniface Akuku, Director of ICT, Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organisation (KALRO)- Dr. Benjamin Kwasi Addom, Team Leader, ICTs for Agriculture, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural

Cooperation(CTA)- Janalize van Buuren, Divisional Sales Manager – East and Central Africa, John Deere- John Logan, Country Director Kenya, TechnoServe - Shaun Ferris, Director of Agriculture and Livelihoods, Catholic Relief Service- Tania Lozansky, Senior Manager, International Financial Corporation (IFC)

12:00 – 1:00 PM Challenge: How will your approach/innovation help ensure Kenyan farmers have achieved disruptive changes in productivity using the latest knowledge, training, practices, and data?

Presentations and pitching by shortlisted innovators1:00 – 2:15 PM Networking Lunch 2:15 – 2:30 PM Ignite Talk: Harnessing the Power of Communities

Sriram Bharatam, Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara LimitedTheme 2 - Market Linkages

2:30 – 3:45 PM

Moderator: Jeehye Kim, Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group Knowledge Panelists:- Mary Nzomo, County Executive Committee, Trans Nzoia County- Benjamin Makai, Senior Manager, Technology for Development, Safaricom- Betty Kibaara, Associate Director, Rockefeller Foundation, Africa Region Office- Castro Antwi-Dandso, Director of Sales and Marketing, ESOKO- Mikael L. Clason Höök, Mastercard Foundation Rural and Agricultural Finance Learning Lab- Sidhartha Samal, Digital Head, Africa & Middle East, OLAM

3:45 – 4:15 PM Coffee Break

4:15 – 5:15 PM

Challenge: Given the limited market linkages for both inputs and production, how can you facilitate linkages between buyers and sellers along the value chain?

Presentations and pitching by shortlisted innovators

5:15 – 5:30 PMIgnite Talk: Disruptive Technology as game-changers for smallholder Agribusinesses

Tim Chambers, Co-founder & Managing Director and founder, InspiraFarms5:30 PM onwards Networking Cocktail

Day 2: 6 April 2019, SaturdayTheme 3 - Farmer Financial Inclusion

8:30 - 9:15 AM

Moderator: Diego Arias, Lead Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group & Naoko Koyama-Blanc, Partner, Dalberg

Knowledge Panelists:- Esther Kasalu-Coffin, Country Director, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)- Leesa Shrader, AgriFin Accelerate Program Director, Mercy Corps- Lucas Meso, Managing Director, Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC)- Reuben Gicheha, Program Officer, Financial Inclusion, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

9:15 - 10:00 AM

Challenge: How can your innovation help to expand coverage of financial services to farmers, including credit, savings, and other financial services?

Presentations and pitching by shortlisted innovators

10:00 - 10:30 AMIgnite Talk: Revolutionizing the use of data for policymaking (The case of Agriculture Observatory in Kenya)Dr. Erick C.M. Fernandes, Global Lead - Technology, Innovation, & Climate-Smart Agriculture, The World Bank GroupCaroline Sartorato Silva Franca, Consultant, The World Bank Group

10:30 - 10:45 AM Coffee break Theme 4 - Data Analytics and Intelligence

10:45 -12:00 PM

Moderator: Ashesh Prasann, Agricultural Economist, The World Bank Group & Michael Tsan, Partner, Dalberg

Knowledge Panelists:- Boniface Akuku, Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Kenya Agricultural & Livestock

Research Organization (KALRO)- Christophe Bocquet – Senior Data Scientist & AgriTech Lead, Dalberg Data Insights- Debisi Araba, Director, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) - Dr. Kala Fleming, Founder, Diaspora AI- Dr. Ladisy Komba Chengula, Lead Agriculture Economist, The World Bank Group- Stewart Collis, Senior Program Officer, Digital Agriculture Solutions, Gates Foundation

12:00 - 12:45 PM

Challenge: How can you increase access to low-cost and accessible data in agriculture or use existing data to enable other entities to better serve farmers?

Presentations and pitching by shortlisted innovators 12:45 - 1:45 PM Networking Lunch

Investment Roundtable

1:45 – 2:45 PM

Moderator: Tim Smyth, Kuza Biashara Limited

Knowledge Panelists:- Anup Jagwani, Principal Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation (IFC)- Martine Jansen, Manager Data-Driven Innovation, Rabobank Foundation - Olukemi Dolly Afun-ogidan, Principal Agribusiness Officer, African Development Bank- Sandeep Khapre, CEO, Binder Dijker Otte (BDO)- Shudhan Kohli, Co-Founder, and CEO, Grey Elephant Ventures

Policies for Disruptive Agriculture Technology

2:45 – 3:45 PM

Moderator: Arif Neky, Senior Advisor – UN Strategic Partnerships, Coordinator – SDG Partnership Platform, UN Resident Coordinator’s Office

Knowledge Panelists:- Prof. Jerome Ochieng, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT)- Prof. Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)- Andrew Karlyn, Strategic & Learning Lead, AgriFin Accelerate at Mercy Corps- Mulat Demeke Desta, Senior Policy Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)- Philip Thigo, Technical Advisor - Data & Innovation, Office of the Deputy President

Synthesis Session3:45 PM – 4:00

PMSynthesis session: summary of the two daysMichael Tsan, Partner, Dalberg

DAT Awards and Closing Remarks

4:00 – 5:00 PM

Closing Remarks Simeon Kacou Ehui, Director, The World Bank GroupJury’s reflection on Challenges Jury RepresentativesAwards: One Million Farmer Initiative ‘First Cohort Awards’Dina Umali-Deininger, Practice Manager, The World Bank Group Thank you NoteParmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank GroupProf. Jerome Ochieng, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) Prof. Micheni J. Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)Mr. Harry K. Kimtai, Principal Secretary - Livestock, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

Welcome RemarksWelcome Remarks by Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation(Represented by the Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation)

The Government of Kenya, in partnership with the World Bank Group, Korea World Bank Partnership Facility (KWPF), and Kuza Biashara, welcomes you to Savannah Valley for the Disruptive Agricultural Technology Challenge and Conference 2019.Kenya is beginning to ride a new wave of a technology revolution with sky-rocketing cellular subscriptions (with 28.3M unique mobile subscribers, 60% penetration17). Today, Nairobi is the epicenter for technological innovation. Kenya's $1 billion18 tech hub is the home to hundreds of innovators, as well as global technology firms like IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. Our innovators are focusing their creative energies on challenges that matter most to Kenyans; we believe that no challenge is more significant than raising agricultural productivity and rural incomes. Whereas we have made progress in modernizing agriculture in Kenya, however, we have not yet reached our full potential. To achieve this potential, we must do agriculture in a different way. The Agriculture Technology (AgriTech) innovators today are disrupting the conventions in agriculture by providing solutions to key constraints faced by farmers – financial, market information, data, and advisory services; therefore, supporting our farmers to leapfrog to new levels of productivity, efficiency, competitiveness, and income, improve nutritional outcomes and enhance resilience to climate change. Thus, Kenya is at the forefront of technology-driven transformation for small and marginal farmers on the continent.The Agriculture Technology (AgriTech) revolution aligns well with the strategic objectives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALF&I) as it allows us to create an enabling environment for agricultural development, increase productivity and output in the agricultural sector, improve market access and trade, and ultimately enhance national food security. The focus of these innovations has been smallholder agriculture which is in line with Kenya Vision 2030. Vision 2030 reiterates the importance of transforming smallholder subsistence agriculture into an innovative, commercially oriented, and modern sector19. These AgriTech innovations can also help achieve the first flagship goal of Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) 17 GSMA intelligence THE MOBILE ECONOMY SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 201718 https://www.wired.com/story/kenya-silicon-savannah-photo-gallery/19 Kenya Vision 2030

2019-2029, which aims to increase smallholder farmers income by targeting 1 million farmers20. Furthermore, the new-age innovators are attracting skilled youth to agriculture thus fulfilling Kenya’s Youth Agribusiness Strategy which is aimed at providing new opportunities for youth in agriculture21. MoALF&I is already leveraging technology to make value chains more efficient and reduce risks. MoALF&I is working with the Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) to register all farmers in the country, a move that is expected to boost service delivery to smallholder farmers.22 MoALF&I is also working with the World Bank on Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project (KCSAP) and National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project (NARIGP) to find ways to make market linkages more effective through digital tools. The Kenyan Government, together with the Swiss Re Group, GIZ, World Bank and ILRI, is also implementing the Kenya Livestock Insurance Program (KLIP) since 2014. KLIP is an index-based livestock insurance program that uses satellite technology to protect pastoralists in the remote, arid and drought-prone rangelands of Kenya from the impacts of extreme weather. Hence, the technology revolution has kickstarted well with contributions from all sector actors. All it needs now is a scale-up to multiply the impact.

At the conference, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI) along with the World Bank Group will launch One Million Farmer Initiative. The One Million Farmer initiative aims to impact the lives of one million farmers in Kenya by leveraging the potential of disruptive technologies. To this end, the Conference will mobilize the agricultural ecosystem to discuss the potential of disruptive technologies in Kenya. Innovators will get an opportunity to present their ideas and join the One Million Farmer Initiative. We believe that this Conference will build the momentum to scale-up the innovations and agricultural technologies by providing a historic platform that brings together global leaders, innovators, leading policymakers, development partners, and technology experts to discuss innovation for agricultural transformation in Kenya and beyond.

The two-day conference will provide an interactive experience through: The Disruptive Agriculture Technologies (DAT) Challenge will bring together

over 20 inspiring innovators to pitch their Agritech solutions focused on smallholder farmers in Kenya

6-panel discussions drawing together 30+ experts in the Agritech field, covering a wide variety of topics, such as access to advisory services, access to financial services and data policy for disruptive agriculture technologies.

The panel discussions and DAT challenge will provide a platform for all innovation ecosystem players to interact with one another, build a network of Agritech in Nairobi, find synergies to collaborate and grow together, further channelizing the investments to scale-up their operations.

20 Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) 2019-202921 http://extwprlegs1.fao.org/docs/pdf/ken171450.pdf22 https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001280282/government-to-collect-farmers-data-in-4-months https://www.nation.co.ke/business/seedsofgold/Briefs-on-agricultural-news-/2301238-4354850-isnr5rz/index.html

I would like to close by highlighting that smallholder agriculture provides employment to 75% of the population and 80% of food supplies, but has limited access to finance, inputs, markets, information, and other services. Technology innovations can overcome all these challenges – but it won’t happen automatically. We need to combine innovation, investment and policy to harness the power of the technology revolution to benefit smallholder farmers.

I urge you all to engage in the dialogue, share thoughts and ideas on the future of agriculture.

Hon. Mwangi Kiunjuri, EGH, MGHCabinet Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation

Welcome Remarks by Country Director, The World Bank Group(Represented by Paolo Belli, Program Leader, Africa, World Bank Group)

I am pleased to welcome you all to the first ever Disruptive Agricultural Technology Challenge and Conference.

At the World Bank Group, we are committed to ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Agriculture and food systems play a central role in meeting these goals.

We know that Africa will be home to 2 billion people by 2050; over the same period, the number of Kenyans will

grow to 85 million. Kenya’s food production will therefore need to grow by 75% by 2030 to keep up with the additional food demand. On the supply side, Africa’s agriculture and food business are projected to grow to 1 trillion dollars by 2030. Accounting for input supply, logistics, processing, packaging, trade, retail and other off-farm activities within value chains, agriculture remains the largest employer in Africa, with several emerging jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities for engaging technologically savvy youth. Indeed, these trends offer a unique opportunity to create high-quality jobs all along the agri-food system, spur farmer-centered technological innovation, and enhance agricultural productivity.

In Kenya, agriculture is the main contributor to the attainment of two of the pillars of the Government’s Big 4 Agenda – manufacturing and food and nutrition security. The World Bank is currently supporting Kenya’s food and nutrition security agenda through the following projects: Climate Smart Agriculture (US$250 million), the National Agricultural Rural Inclusive Growth (US$200 million), the Regional Pastoral and Livelihoods Resilience (US$77 million), and two large-scale irrigation projects.

Innovation in agriculture is, without doubt, an important tool to tackle food security, and raise overall productivity and profitability in the agriculture sector. The range of agri-tech innovations that can be employed to transform Kenya’s agriculture is both exciting and endless. This includes weather data analytics, drones and satellites-based remote sensing and imagery, precision agriculture, Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications utilizing sensors for soil, water, plant and animal diseases, and fintech solutions for farmers, among many others. Low-cost digital technology represents a vast untapped potential for farmers, investors, and entrepreneurs in Africa.

Over the next two days, you will actively engage with each other on practical and actionable solutions to scale up innovations that have the potential to transform Kenyan agriculture and the challenges faced by farmers. However, developing agri-tech innovations is not enough. Firstly, farmers need to be engaged and trained on how to effectively adopt them. Secondly, investors need to back the innovators to scale up. Lastly, governments need to create the policy environment and infrastructure that will encourage the large-scale use of these disruptive innovations.

Reaching one million farmers in the next 10 years with disruptive agri-tech innovations seems ambitious, but I have confidence that the innovators and all actors in this conference will provide useful insights on how to attain these targets. On behalf of the World Bank Group, I would like to congratulate all the finalists of the innovation challenge. Their business ideas and plans will contribute to the transformation of Kenya’s agriculture, towards improved incomes for farmers, food security and job creation.

Let me thank the Government of Kenya, the Korea-World Bank Group Partnership Facility, Kuza Biashara, Dalberg and many others who made this Disruptive Agricultural Technology Challenge and Conference possible.

Key Points Discussed During the Welcome RemarksDescriptionThe Conference opened with remarks by senior leadership from the World Bank Group, United Nations, African Development Bank, and Kuza. The Principle Secretary, Fisheries delivered the inaugural Address, which was followed by a speech delivered on behalf of the Chairman of the Council of Governors, and comments made by the Principle Secretary, State Department for Agriculture Research.Speakers

Key points discussed Paolo Belli, Program Leader, Africa, World Bank Group

Agriculture and food systems play a central role in meeting the World Bank Groups goals of ending poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Africa will be home to 2 billion people by 2050; over the same period, the number of Kenyans will grow to 85 million. Kenya’s food production will therefore need to grow by 75% by 2030 to keep up with the additional food demand. On the supply side, Africa’s agriculture and food business are projected to grow to 1 trillion dollars by 2030. In Kenya, agriculture is the main contributor to the attainment of two of the pillars of the Government’s Big 4 Agenda – manufacturing and food and nutrition security.

Mary Nzomo County

Executive Committee,

Representing the Council of

Governors

Hamadi Boga Principal

Secretary, Agricultural Research , Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,

Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

Micheni Ntiba, Principal

Secretary - Fisheries,

Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,

Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

Paolo BelliProgram

Leader, Africa,World Bank

Group

Sriram Bharatam Founder &

Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara

Limited

Edson MpyisiChief Financial Economist and Co-ordinator Enable Youth Programme,

African Development

Bank

Sidharth Chatteree

United Nations Resident

Coordinator

Innovation in agriculture is an important tool to tackle food insecurity and raise overall productivity and profitability in the agriculture sector. Low-cost digital technology represents a vast untapped potential for farmers, investors, and entrepreneurs in Africa. However, developing agri-tech innovations is not enough. Firstly, farmers need to be engaged and trained on how to effectively adopt them. Secondly, investors need to back the innovators to scale up. Lastly, governments need to create the policy environment and infrastructure that will encourage the large-scale use of these disruptive innovations.

Sidharth Chatterjee, United Nations Resident Coordinator

The timing of this conference is crucial because there is strong political weight and push from the government behind the agriculture transformation agenda. The right public policies and leadership are in place to drive transformation in the sector. County governors are not just grappling with the challenges of food insecurity but are transforming their counties into food surplus areas. Through the convergence of partnerships and knowledge we can transform the space. We cannot achieve scalable results for the Sustainable Development Goals without the might, innovation, and technology of the private sector. The United Nations working together with the World Bank, civil society, the private sector, and the Kenyan government can drive these results. Kenya has an opportunity to set the blueprint for what agribusiness and scale will look like in Africa. Edson Mypisi, Chief Financial Economist and Co-ordinator Enable Youth Programme, African Development Bank

Three elements - the youth, agriculture, and ICT – must be addressed to move the agriculture agenda forward and drive economic activity in Africa. Since over 70% of the population in Africa is under 35 years, the youth need to be put at the center of all policies, programs, and strategies introduced. Meanwhile, there is a huge productivity gap in agriculture, as highlighted by the $35 billion annual food imports in Africa that needs to be closed. Advances in technology offer endless opportunities to change the business models in the agriculture sector. Connectivity and internet utilization are very important in the space. During an African Development Bank value chain project in Gabon, youth leaders commented that they would only move from the city to rural areas to enter the agriculture space if there is internet connectivity. Sriram Bharatam, Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited

There is enough space for all players in the ecosystem to collaborate. There is a lot of room for everyone to contribute their own respective expertise. Kuza has impacted more than 4.2 million people and created 150,000 new jobs in Kenya over 4 years. Kuza has also created a backpack kit that is packaged with technological solutions, which enables people to go into communities to service farmers. Through partnerships and mentoring of new entrepreneurs, Kuza aims to expand its reach of smallholder farmers in Kenya.

Micheni Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

Agricultural produce is a lot more than just for consumption. It is also a source of raw material for trade, security, health, supporting manufacturing industries, and driving economic activity. Data and information are very important for the agricultural sector and need to be captured and managed at all levels of government. The absence of good data leads to reduced output and other challenges in the sector. With new technology, the government will be able to capture data accurately and in real-time to move the industry forward. Mary Nzomo, County Executive Committee, Representing the Council of Governors

Counties’ governments are key to catalyzing agriculture transformation and need to be included in every step of the transformation process. Implementation of policies and strategies take place at the county level which makes buy-in at this level critical for success. All stakeholders in the ecosystem should therefore visit the counties. The World Bank Group should develop a partnership agreement with the Council of Governors. This would ensure that the scalable ideas and technologies generated from the Challenge are implemented and showcased to other counties. Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary, Agricultural Research, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

All stakeholders need to support smallholder farmers and provide them with an ecosystem that enables them to increase their income. The government aims to utilize smart solutions for the fertilizer and seed subsidy program in order to reach the right farmers with the right inputs. Integrating technology within the program will make it more transparent and efficient. The lack of information collection and data analytics is a major challenge in the sector. Volumes of data have been generated from different government initiative. However, due to fragmentation in industry, such data have not been combined and collectively assessed. There is high demand for data to be concentrated and analyzed to facilitate informed decision-making by the government. For example, in order to make the right interventions to mitigate the current drought experienced by communities in the north of Kenya, the government needs to collect data. Overall, the ecosystem as a whole needs to collaborate and consolidate data to create synergies.

Key Learnings from Knowledge SessionsBackground of DAT Challenge and Conference - Vision of One Million Farmer Initiative

DescriptionThe session outlined the vision of the One Million Farmer Initiative, which aims to provide solutions to the challenges faced by farmers by connecting them to a digital platform. The platform will bring together different disruptive technology innovators to offer an end-to-end platform solution keeping farmers’ challenges as a focal point. The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI) of Kenya, along with the World Bank Group and the Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility are the key partners of the initiative.Key points discussedThe World Bank is supporting two agricultural programs in Kenya; The National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project and The Climate Smart Project. The total investment in these projects is USD 450 million and they have been rolled out in 45 counties across Kenya; Nairobi and Mombasa counties are excluded as the scope of agricultural activities in these areas is limited. Through the One Million Farmer Initiative, the World Bank aims to reach one million Kenyan farmers through disruptive agricultural technologies. By leveraging the platform, innovators can scale up their businesses and provide products and services to farmers through access to networking opportunities, knowledge and learning, data analytics services, evaluation and learning, incubation services and financing and investment. It is the vision of the World Bank to have the largest agri-tech incubator in Africa based in Nairobi. The World Bank will therefore work with the government to ensure there exists a conducive environment for growth of agri-techs. This should ultimately lead to significant increases in agricultural productivity throughout the country.

Dr. Parmesh Shah Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods and Agricultural Jobs, The World

Bank Group

DATs’ Role in the Kenyan context

DescriptionCTA, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation, in partnership with Dalberg Advisors, presented the findings from their most recent study on Digitalization for Agriculture. The study highlights the role digital agri-tech companies play in increasing profitability and productivity of smallholder farmers by allowing them to leverage digital solutions in the Kenyan context. Key points discussed CTA, in partnership with Dalberg has been working on a project to assess the digital agricultural ecosystem in Africa with a focus on six countries including Kenya. The project focus is to find out ways through which DATs can scale sustainably. A thorough analysis of the sector will provide data and specific recommendations that can move the sector forward. A focus on Kenya is important as it has the highest penetration of digital agri-tech solutions in Africa. This is largely driven by high levels of mobile phone penetration. Preliminary findings show that approximately 370 digital agri-tech innovators are currently active in Africa with advisory services being the most prominent digital agri-tech services. In Sub Saharan Africa, 33 million smallholder farmers are registered for these services. However, this number is to be taken cautiously as there are duplications and registration does not imply use and impact. Only 33% of smallholder farmers are currently engaged (active users) and it is therefore necessary to find a way to address the gap between registration and use. Furthermore, only 24% of the registered farmers are women yet around 50% of all smallholder farmers in Africa are women.Collaboration between different ecosystem actors including government, investors, and innovators is critical to ensure agri-techs scale sustainably. The project aims to come up with recommendations on some of the areas that require collaboration as it shall highlight the current state, challenges, and opportunities for the agri-tech sector.

Michael Tsan, Partner and Global Lead of ICT Practice,

Dalberg

Michael Hailu, Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural

and Rural Cooperation (CTA)

Knowledge Panel 1: Agricultural Productivity DescriptionPanelists discussed the different types of digital solutions in the market that facilitate the delivery of extension services, climate smart agriculture advisory, input services, mechanization services, and data information services directly to farmers. The panelist also discussed the impact that is derived from equipping farmers with such knowledge and education. Panelists

Key points discussed Many of the productivity challenges that farmers face can be solved by analog solutions. Analog solutions lay down the foundation to build digital technologies. It is important to have the analog elements working well for farmers across the five key services - organization, productivity, finance, marketing, and innovation - and harness digital tools to drive and scale these. So far, the analog-side of agriculture has only produced annual single-digit productivity growth for major crops. Harnessing digitalization is likely to provide enough disruption to lead to double-digit growth. Farmers need to shift their mindset. Currently across the value chains, many smallholder farmers do not see their operations as a business. Until they change that mindset it will be very difficult to get uptake of technologies and best practices. Improving financial literacy amongst smallholders can contribute to overcoming this and enable them to make better decisions to improve productivity.There would be a significant increase in adoption amongst farmers if tailored productivity innovations are provided for free. Currently, many large farms are utilizing precision technology and other innovations because they see its value and they can afford it. In contrast, there is low uptake from smallholder farmers because they cannot afford the services. To address this, business models need to be continuously tested to ensure that their offerings are affordable and accessible to smallholder farmers. Businesses can work with development partners and NGOs to test this, and may require a subsidy to absorb the cost of providing free services. Similarly, technologies can be used to drive service aggregation so that farmers have access to more services at lower

Boniface Akuku,

Director of ICT,

KALRO

Benjamin Kwasi Addom

Team Leader – ICTs for

Agriculture,CTA

Tania Lozansky

Global Head of Advisory, Manufacturi

ng Agribusines

s and Services,

IFC

Shaun Ferris

Director of Agriculture

and Livelihoods Program, Catholic Relief

Services

John LoganCountry

Director – Kenya,

TechnoServe

Janalize Van

BuurenEast and Central Africa

Divisional Sales

Manager,John Deere

price points. In the sector, technology should be harnessed to create inclusivity and not drive inequity. The government needs better data to aid the scale up of services and improve productivity in the sector. It will be very hard to achieve this without good data. For instance, the public sector needs quality information on soil and weather systems, which have a direct effect on farmer yields. Overall, there is a need for governments to stop being reactive to issues in the sector and utilize data to become proactive and predict issues in advance.

Knowledge Panel 2: Market Linkages Description This panel explored the various disruptive agri-tech solutions that connect Kenyan farmers willing to sell their produce, to buyers both in local and international markets. Bridging the gap between buyer and seller is vital to fostering and increasing the economic activity and the productivity of the agriculture sector, especially given the context where farmers currently struggle to reach the market. Panelists

Key points discussed Over 80% of smallholder farmers in Kenya sell their post-harvest produce. They sell to both the formal and informal markets regardless of volumes. Market linkages to buyers in the formal agricultural value chain by firms like Twiga and Tulaa as well as informal agricultural value chains by Olam are crucial for the livelihoods of the smallholder farmers. Kenyan farmers have for a long time experienced various challenges when it comes to access to markets. Some of the most identifiable challenges have been poor infrastructure as most farmers are in rural areas, unreliable middlemen when selling produce, lack of market information, high transaction costs for access, lack of relevant processing facilities, seasonality in production, inefficiencies in produce collection and aggregation, challenges in compliance to safety and quality standards, lack of economies of scale, and unpredictable market. Different challenges will call for different solutions. Various players in the agricultural ecosystem are developing different solutions to eradicate some of the challenges. Safaricom is partnering with agri-tech incubators through the DigiFarm platform to connect smallholder famers to markets. Through its large customer base, its partners can now easily reach farmers on the platform. Meanwhile, the Rockefeller Foundation, through the YieldWise Project is providing farmers with solutions to their most pressing issues. The project is helping farmers in the mango value chain in Kenya find a solution to losses caused by fruit flies. The foundation has a goal to open the export market for

Sidhartha SamalGeneral

Manager,OLAM

Mikael L. Clason Höök,

Mastercard Foundation Rural and

Agricultural Finance Learning

Lab

Benjamin Makai, Senior

Manager, Technology

for Development, Safaricom

Betty Kibaara, Associate Director,

Rockefeller Foundation

, Africa Region Office

Mary Nzomo

CEC,Trans Nzoia

County

Castro Antwi-Dandso

Director of Sales and Marketing,

ESOKO

farmers in Kenya through a partnership with Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) to improve quality of produce and limit post-harvest loss. For ESOKO and Olam, providing farmers with transparency in pricing of their commodities is important. The firms are leveraging the prevalence of mobile technology to optimize market linkages for farmers. In addressing the challenge of unreliable middlemen, it is critical to remember they play a very important role in the value chain given poor infrastructure in farming zones in Kenya. Some strategies like contract farming, selling directly to the processors, ensuring transparency in pricing and reducing the cost of production to create competitive markets can go a long way to reduce challenges of unreliable middlemen. However, they cannot be entirely eliminated from the value chain. Generally, most new innovations across the value chain provide an array of bundled services under one platform. Market linkages are bundled with advisory services as well as data analytics services. Bundling of these services has reduced the time and expenses used by the farmer in accessing innovative solutions.

Knowledge Panel 3: Farmer Financial Inclusion DescriptionPanelists discussed digital innovations that give farmers access to various affordable financial products. They also discussed the strides and gaps in access to credit, savings, insurance and payment services that have been tailored to serve the needs of smallholder farmers. Panelists

Key points discussed Farmer cooperatives (SACCOs) have vast amounts of untapped data on farmers. Innovators can use the data generated by SACCOs to build credit profiles for farmers. For instance, a model that is working for AGRA involves creating and integrating digital IT platforms for SACCOs with M-pesa wallet. This enables farmers to apply for a loan and receive it on their phone. Financial institutions that do not want to deal with the smallholder farmers directly can provide wholesale financing to the SACCOs and SACCOs can lend to smallholders through their channels.Companies must take a farmer-centric approach in creating relevant products and services to smallholder farmers. Currently, many large financial and non-financial companies with digital platform do not know how to tailor their offering to smallholder farmers. Since agriculture is a large market - with 70% of the working population in the sector - these companies want to have a presence. To overcome this, they should listen to the farmers first, identify their major pain-points, and then design their financial offerings accordingly. A major financial pain-point for farmers is that they need cash immediately after a harvest. Many farmers wait a long time before they receive payment from buyers. Some buyers take advantage of the farmers immediate cash need and negotiate prices drastically below market value. As a result, many farmers lose out on profitability. Technology platforms can be used to track successful farm product deliveries and the quantities delivered to create a profile on the farmer. In return, banks and other financial institutions can

Esther Kasalu-Coffin, Country Director,

International Fund for

Agricultural Development

(IFAD)

Reuben Gicheha Program Officer – Financial Inclusion,

AGRA

Lucas MesoManaging Director,

Agricultural Finance

Corporation (AFC)

Leesa ShraderAgriFin

Accelerate Program Director,

Mercy Corps/AFA

provide credit to farmers to relieve them of their immediate post-harvest cash needs. It is important to note though that many farmers are nervous to take on debt. One reasons for this is that they lack a clear understanding of the financial-side of their business. Most farmers just want a savings product that smoothens their cash flow and would rather use their own savings than take on loans. Studies also show that farmers would prefer to solve issues in their operations such as climate change and pest disease to increase yield, before turning to debt.

Knowledge Panel 4: Data Analytics and Intelligence DescriptionPanelists discussed data sourcing, curation, data analytics and data insights as well as different types of datasets such as farmer registry data/farmer profiles, field sensors data providing data on soil, agronomy data from field trials, weather and climate data, remote sensing data, crop surveillance data, pest and disease surveillance data. New innovations in hardware and software agri-tech such as remote sensing, drones, machine learning, blockchain, AI and their impact on the quality and quantity of data available to farmers were also discussed. In addition, the panel explored how these new data sources can be used to improve the lives of smallholder farmers. Panelists

Key points discussed It is critical for farmers to have high quality, accessible and timely data on their farms. To achieve this, there is a need to focus on specific farmer issues to tailor products and services to their needs. This will ensure they make timely decisions on when, how and what to plant for maximum yields and income.The agricultural data ecosystem in Kenya is faced by various challenges. There has been lack of integration of ground-truth data into decision making, lack of high-quality primary data that is in granular form, information asymmetry, and difficulty in creating trust for usage of data. In addition to that, there is a poor balance between amount of historical data and real time data available. Historical data is useful for modelling but cannot be used to provide real-time insights to farmers. The One Million Farmer Initiative will help address some of these challenges. The World Bank has developed a partnership with International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and other key stakeholders to ensure they capture, analyze, and disseminate information to farmers. In addition to that, the AgObservatory team from the World Bank in collaboration with Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) will provide farmers with

Stewart CollisSenior

Program Officer – Digital

Agriculture Solutions,

Gates Foundation

Dr. Ladisy Komba

ChengulaLead

Agricultural Economist

– Agriculture

Global Practice,

World Bank

Dr. Kala Fleming

Co-Founder & Director, Diaspora AI

Debisi Araba

Director, International Center

for Tropical Agriculture

(CIAT)

Christophe Bocquet

Senior Data

Scientist & Agritech

Lead, Dalberg

Data Insights

Boniface Akuku

Director of ICT,

KALRO

access to a big data platform of all the counties in Kenya except for Mombasa and Nairobi. The platform will provide agricultural data insights to the various agricultural sector stakeholders ranging from farmers, policy makers, donors as well as private sector organizations.

1.

Investment Roundtable DescriptionPanelist discussed issues around data, legislative environment, commercial viability, and risk from the perspective of Development Finance Institutions, donors, and private investors – that are preventing capital flows from entering the agriculture sector. In addition, the panel discussed actionable solutions that can be leveraged by ecosystem players in order to unlock systematic investments at scale into the sector. Panelists

Key points discussedLarge amounts of grants and donor capital in the agriculture sector can be a deterrent for private/commercial investors. Due to efforts to reduce poverty and drive economic growth in the sector, many grants have been distributed to prop up businesses. Such businesses are not sustainable and considered a risk from the perspective of investors. As a result, when evaluating investment options in the agriculture sector, investors assess whether the underlying business model can survive long-term without donor capital. Those that can are deemed to be worthy investments. Blended finance options are helping to tackle the perceived riskiness of investing in the agriculture sector. Public-private partnerships have been an effective finance option for de-risking agriculture investments. By combining donor money with that of commercial institutions, investors are more willing to include digital agriculture investments under their portfolio that they would otherwise not. Development partners can play a role in investing in early stage businesses. This is important as there is a lack of seed capital available to business in Africa, which limits business growth. At early stages in the business lifecycle, companies tend to raise capital from family and friends to get their business going. However, in Africa there is a lack of wealth amongst such groups which makes it difficult for businesses to secure funding. As a result, when raising rounds from institutional investors, they are perceived as a risk.

Anup Jagwani Principal

Investment Officer,

International Finance

Corporation (IFC)

Olukemi Dolly Afun-

Ogidan Principal

Agribusiness Officer, African

Development Bank

Sandeep Khapre

CEO, Binder Dijker

Otte (BDO)

Shudhan Kohli Co-

Founder and CEO, Grey Elephant Ventures

Martine Jansen Manager

Data-Driven Innovation, Rabobank Foundation

Institutions such as IFC are overcoming this by investing in venture capital and private equity funds to enable them to uptake these investments.

Policies for Disruptive Agriculture TechnologyDescriptionThe objective of this panel was to get insights from all the key players of the ecosystem on how to create an enabling policy environment for DATs to scale-up. The panellists discussed the key policy constraints, priority areas for policy making as well as the general changes that should be made to the policy making process in Kenya to ensure that the agricultural sector has a conducive policy environment to encourage scale-up of DATs. Panelists

Key points discussedThe Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation has a vision to make Kenya a food secure country by encouraging an innovative, commercially aware, and competitive agricultural sector. This has led to the establishment of the Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy by the Ministry. To support that, the president of Kenya, His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta has committed himself to achieving 100% food and nutrition security by 2022 under the Big 4 Agenda. Several key policy constraints are holding Kenya back from harnessing the power of DATs. There lacks a concise policy on collaboration, sharing, and digitization of data by key agricultural sector players. Most agricultural departments especially in the government have their records on paper which makes sharing of information resources with other stakeholders very challenging. In addition, there is an increasing need on legislation of policies that can solve issues of data privacy and ownership in Kenya. It is critical to learn how to make policies that can adapt to the ever-changing innovations in technology. One way of doing this would be making sure that ICT is at the initiation of all government projects and hence all records are digitized. Furthermore, the government should consider legislating

Prof. Jerome Ochieng, Principal

Secretary, Ministry of

Information, Communication, and Technology

(ICT) – represented by

Mr Timothy Were

Philip Thigo, Technical Advisor

- Data & Innovation, Office

of the Deputy President

Mulat Demeke Desta,

Senior Policy Officer, Food and

Agriculture Organization

(FAO)

Andrew Karlyn, Strategic &

Learning Lead, AgriFin Accelerate

at Mercy Corps

Prof. Hamadi Boga,

Principal Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,

Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

collaboration among the various stakeholders in the agricultural sector when it comes to sharing information/data. Involving the private sector and DAT entrepreneurs in the policy making process would go a long way in ensuring policies can last and adapt to new technologies. Legislation should also be elaborate, to ensure that issues of data ownership and privacy are tackled.

Ignite Talk: Harnessing the Power of Communities

Key points discussedPeople at the base of the pyramid especially smallholder farmers, women and the youth are equally engaged when it comes to the need for information. With everyone becoming time poor, it is critical to find innovative ways to engage the people at the base of the pyramid. Kuza Biashara has found new innovative ways to tackle this challenge. Some of their innovative solutions include providing bite time learning through 2-3-minute videos which can be uploaded on social media. This includes more than 40 million of video content for farmers in different languages. Kuza also provides micro-learning, micro-distribution and micro-mentoring to smallholders farmers in partnership with agencies like Syngenta Foundation.One prevalent model to reach rural farmers is the Agripreneur model. The Kuza team uses the process of selection, training, launching, mentoring and farmer engagement to grow businesses. Their team goes from village to village to identify rural entrepreneurs, equip them with the necessary skills for entrepreneurship, incubate them and support their businesses. Some of the services they offer through this model are crop advisory and access to credit.

Sriram Bharatam, Founder & Chief Mentor, Kuza Biashara Limited

Ignite Talk: Disruptive Technology as Game-changers for Small-scale Agribusinesses

Key points discussedTo take advantage of the growth in export markets globally, the Kenyan agriculture industry needs massive investment and upgrade. There has been a 250% growth in demand for avocados in the past few years and 70% growth in demand for the export market for bananas, but growth in production in Kenya has been flatlining. Investment is needed to strengthen infrastructure and have more people on the ground to boost production. Upgrading the sector requires both hardware and software-based solutions.Effectively managing cold-chain storage is important in being competitive in the export and domestic market. Retaining product quality during the route-to-market, facilitates repeat purchases and increases the likelihood of income growth. InspiraFarms addresses this directly by supplying energy-efficient, solar-powered refrigerators, cold rooms, and modular packhouses.

Tim Chambers Co-founder & Managing Director and founder, InspiraFarms

Ignite Talk: Revolutionizing the Use of Data for Policymaking (The Case of Agriculture Observatory in Kenya)

Key points discussedThe over-arching role of the AgObservatory in Kenya is to provide agricultural intelligence for The World Bank and its partners. One of the goals of the Observatory is tracking food and feed systems; both in the private sector, of which the information is proprietary; and the public sector, of which the information is open/free access. The Observatory also provides advanced indices and localized and timely insight for farmers to ensure maximum production. The Observatory partners with aWhere to process huge volumes of data. The data can be obtained from both ground stations and satellites within a short period of time and processing is done in real-time, providing agricultural ecosystem players with critical real-time data for informing their decisions. Big data techniques such as machine learning algorithms are applied to process the data. In Kenya, the Observatory is working with KALRO to provide agronomical near real-time insights for Kenyans. Through the KALRO website/app, farmers can access weather information for any part of Kenya to help guide their farming decisions.

Dr. Erick C.M. Fernandes, Global Lead - Technology, Innovation, & Climate-Smart Agriculture, The World Bank Group

Closing Remarks

Simeon Kacou Ehui, Director, The World Bank Group

The Conference has highlighted key innovative agri-tech solutions that are tackling the challenges of low productivity, constrained financial and market access and data deficient decision making. The World Bank will launch the One Million Farmer Initiative in Kenya and bring together the first cohort under the platform to reach one million smallholder farmers. The Bank will also host similar Challenges in other African countries. In line with the Digital Moonshot target for Africa, the World Bank has a vision of the future Kenyan smallholder farmers. Before the planting season, they can use their mobile phones to access real-time data on their farms, tailored farm advisory services, and receive credit in their mobile wallet. During the planting season they can order tractors, mechanization tools, and farm inputs on-demand. During the harvesting season, they can harvest at optimal times receiving guaranteed prices on e-platforms and utilize energy-efficient storage on the route-to-market. It is the hope that such a future will be realized through the One Million Farmer Initiative.Dina Umali-Deininger, Practice Manager, The World Bank Group

The World Bank recently launched a “Digital Moonshot" strategy. Through this strategy, exceptional and coordinated efforts are being made to ensure that all Africans have universal and affordable access to ICTs by no later than 2030. In Africa, President Kenyatta has volunteered to be the first to sign up to the Digital Moonshot to support the Big 4 Agenda; this means every farmer in Kenya will be digitally enabled by 2030. To achieve this, the Conference and the One Million Farmer Initiative is the start to that, and the World Bank is committed to helping Kenya achieve its goal. Kenya is on a path to be a world leader in agri-tech. However, that will require collaboration between the various players in the sector: government,

Mary NzomoCounty Executive

Committee,Trans Nzoia

County

Dr. Parmesh Shah,

Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods

& Agricultural Jobs, The World

Bank Group

Prof. Micheni J. Ntiba,

Principal Secretary - Fisheries,

Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock,

Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

Dina Umali-Deininger,

Practice Manager, The World Bank

Group

Simeon Kacou Ehui,

Director, The World Bank

Group

public and private sector both across and within the sectors. The Ministry of Agriculture will have to work with DAT entrepreneurs and other ecosystem players to ensure there is an enabling environment for entrepreneurship. On the other hand, entrepreneurs will have to work with each other to leverage their strengths, and financiers will have to work with innovators to help them scale up their technologies. If this is achieved, then Kenya will easily have a thriving agricultural sector. Dr. Parmesh Shah, Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods & Agricultural Jobs, The World Bank Group

Both Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 members will be part of the One Million Farmer Initiative by the World Bank. The initiative will have an agri-tech incubator in Kenya which will be the largest incubator for DATs in Africa. The One Million Farmer Initiative will reach the farmers under the two World Bank projects currently in Kenya through a digitally enabled platform. All members on the platform will receive minimum incubation services and networking opportunities. The Initiative will bring together a network of members from Africa and around the globe and financing options will be discussed between the individual platform members and the World Bank team. In the next three months following the conference, all Platform members will be approached by the World Bank to develop a value proposition of how they will work together to impact Kenyan farmers. Mary Nzomo, County Executive Committees (CECs), Trans Nzoia County

County Executive Committees (CECs) are driving agriculture in the country. We have 47 CECs and they have a caucus which holds periodic meetings to discuss the way forward on the state of the agriculture in the counties and the country at large. They are committed to work with the World Bank to implement agricultural projects in the counties.The vision of the counties is aligned with the Big 4 Agenda and both levels of government are committed to providing an enabling environment for DATs. The counties are looking up to the national government to create policies and are ready to implement them for the counties. The promise of the counties is that they are ready to adopt DATs in their implementation of agriculture strategy and support the national government in developing the best environment for DATs. The two levels of government are not in competition and are going to work together to reach farmers. Prof. Micheni J. Ntiba, Principal Secretary - Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)

We are getting a solution to the many challenges of the Kenyan farmer through DATs. The conference has been a first step towards achieving one goal in the Big 4 Agenda; food security. The government and all other key stakeholders need to make a commitment that the journey will not collapse and that all ideas discussed at the Conference will be implemented. The national government is ready to work with the counties. The CECs are welcomed to ensure both levels of government work together to have food security in the country. After the Conference, there will be need to prepare an action plan that is shared by both levels of government and the World Bank to

ensure smallholder farmers are uplifted. The national government called on the CECs to start developing their action plan with a specific timeline for the agricultural sector.

DAT ChallengeChallenge OverviewThe One Million Farmer Initiative in Kenya will work with multiple cohorts of 10-15 agri-tech innovators over three years. The first cohort of DAT innovators was selected through a pitch challenge competition during the DAT Innovation Knowledge and Challenge Conference on April 5-6 th, 2019. Future challenge rounds will invite additional applicants in 2020 and 2021.

The DAT innovators selected in the first cohort will receive performance-based awards to support their scale-up and integration into the One Million Farmer Initiative. Equally important, the selected innovators will receive in-kind support in the form of access to knowledge, shared ecosystem and data services, and access to an expanded network of partners including private investors, funders, agribusinesses, technical and business model expert mentors, and government leaders. Those not selected as awardees (second cohort) during the Challenge will still receive program support (training, mentorship, and connections to networks; and will be eligible for joining the One Million Farmer Initiative program as full partners if they meet eligibility criteria over time.

Overall, twenty-three DAT innovators pitched during the first DAT Challenge on April 5-6th, 2019. The innovator pitches were judged on their product/service quality, potential for scale-up, impact potential, business model sustainability, and their ability/willingness to contribute as partners to the DAT ecosystem generally and to the One Million Farmer Initiative platform.

Based on the results of the challenge, the 23 DATs were divided into two cohorts:

‘First Cohort of Innovators’ – These were the top ranked DAT pitches, who were considered ready to join the platform. From the World Bank’s end, they will:

o Receive a performance-based grant when they achieve certain milestones

o Receive non-financial assistance in the form of incubation and mentorship support, as well as connection to investors, agribusiness, and technical experts

o Be deployed directly within the World Bank One Million Farmer Initiative project and have the chance to work closely with the Kenyan government

‘Second Cohort of Innovators’ – These were the top remaining DAT pitch participants. They will:

o Receive non-financial assistance, including mentorship and coaching to help them achieve the level needed to work directly with the World Bank on the One Million Farmer Initiative

o Have the option to join the ‘First Cohort of Innovators’ once deemed ready without going through another Challenge round

Thus, the conference lay the foundations for innovations to scale up in Kenya by connecting a million Kenyan farmers to disruptive agricultural technologies through a platform.

Challenge ProcessThe DATs selected for pitching on the day of the Challenge had been through a rigorous shortlisting process. This process was competitive as well as transparent. There were three stages of the selection process: Ecosystem players convening workshop: All DATs in Kenya had access to an open invitation to the workshop in June 2018. Some of the Challengers attended the workshop, which brought together various players in the agri-tech sector in Kenya and lay a foundation for the DATs Challenge and Conference. Online application: All DATs in Kenya had access to an online application. The deadline to apply was 26th March. World Bank received 37 submissions by the deadline. The DATs online applications were reviewed based on the following criteria:

They are serving farmers in Kenya (or have clear intention to enter Kenya, but are already serving farmers elsewhere)

Have commercial orientation, or, at the very least, earned revenue elements in their models or proven track record of donor and government support if they are non-profits

They are in validation/scaling stage of their business, not early stage pilots They clearly address one of the four 2019 DAT challenge themes They combine digital technologies, data analytics and innovations, IoT or

innovative business models and digital and analog outreach They are crop or commodity specific, or have track record delivering value

for specific crop value chains, except for financial inclusion track that could be more general

The World Bank team reviewed all 37 DAT submissions with an eye on these criteria and shortlisted 25, with particular focus on three binding criteria – (i) a minimum scale of 3000 farmers, (ii) successful pilot or proof of concept (iii) technology-enabled disruption potential. These 25 DAT submissions were invited to participate in a pitch bootcamp.Pitch bootcamp: 24 out of the 25 invited DATs participated in the bootcamp. This was a 2-day bootcamp (28/29 March), where the World Bank Group shared its vision of One Million Farmer Initiative and DATs prepared their presentation for the day of the Challenge and practiced their pitches. The DATs got feedback and support to structure their pitch towards aligning with the One Million Farmer Initiative platform thinking.Additional individual coaching sessions: Seven out of the 24 invited DATs took part in additional individual pitch coaching sessions. They received feedback and support on various aspects of their pitch, including content and presentation skills. Additionally, ~15 Challenge participants did dry runs of their presentation with Dalberg support the day prior to the Conference.

Challenge Track Descriptions

The DAT challenge participants were aligned against four themes/tracks namely – Agricultural Productivity, Market Linkage, Farmer Financial Inclusion, Data Analytics and Intelligence.

Theme 1 - Agricultural Productivity ChallengeContext: The average productivity of major crops in Kenya has not increased at a sufficient rate annually. Maize productivity, for instance, has increased by 17% over the last decade resulting in an annual increase of only about 1.7%. Relative to the need to more than double agricultural productivity by 2030 to meet national targets, this baseline pace of growth needs very substantial acceleration (e.g., 5-10x) in coming years. There are multiple reasons why growth in productivity has been slow such as – increased reliance on rainfed agriculture (98%), weak reach and uptake of advisory and extension services, lack of access to climate-smart practices, and – critically – limited access to improved agricultural production inputs (e.g., seeds, fertilizer, pesticides) and mechanization for production (i.e., land preparation equipment like tractors and irrigation). To reach their full potential, farmers need to have access to the latest technologies and actionable information.

Some relevant disruptive technologies for this track include (i) digitally enabled agriculture advisory services for smallholder farmers, including climate smart advisory (direct-to-farmer digital advisory services or digital advisory services intermediated via agribusiness, government, or NGO extension agents), (ii) digitally enabled models for linking farmers to inputs like fertilizer, seeds, etc., (iii) digitally enabled models for linking farmers to production stage machinery (e.g., uberized, shared economy, or PAYG models for irrigation and tractor services), and (iv) agriculture hardware innovations at the agri-energy nexus (e.g., off-grid solar powered irrigation equipment).

There were examples of each of these types of models among the pitch challengers with all falling in two broad categories – (i) digitally enabled advisory players and (i) digitally enabled market linkages to agricultural inputs (including mechanization inputs).

Key impact question/objective for this track: How will the DAT approach/innovation help ensure Kenyan farmers have achieved disruptive changes in productivity (expressed primarily as increases in yield) by gaining access to high quality digitally enabled advice/training/insights or digitally enabled access to critical production inputs, including mechanization technologies.

Challengers

Agrics provides agricultural Digital Green uses a video DigiCow provides extension Farmers Pride

products and services on credit to smallholder farmers to increase production and value chain effectiveness. Agrics sells high quality inputs; fertilizers and seeds and provides farmer tailored advisory services.

approach to amplify extension providers’ effectiveness to improve farmers’ livelihoods. They partner with existing extension officers to provide videos with highly localized content, human mediators to reinforce key messages and use near real-time data and feedback from farmers to inform adjustments on the content of the videos.

services to farmers using an innovative mobile phone solution. They provide training through a mobile app in which farmers can also chat and share ideas. Voice-based training coupled with SMSs is provided to farmers without access to smartphones.

leverages technology and franchising to break down barriers that have limited success of farmers. They provide a one stop village level online mobile app/web platform popularly known as DIGISHOP that ensures access to all the necessary inputs, services and information farmers need.

Hello Tractor connects tractor owners to farmers through a digital solution. They enable farmers to request affordable tractor services, while providing enhanced security to tractor owners through remote asset tracking and virtual monitoring. This value also extends to banks financing tractors and dealers who service them.

Precision Agriculture for Development provides low-cost mobile agronomic advice to farmers that is accessible, relevant, and customized to boost yields.

Sunculture offers solar-powered irrigation systems to smallholder farmers and helps provide financing for acquiring these machineries to smallholder farmers.

Waterwatch’s Crop Disease Alert and Tracking solution (CDAT) is a (smart)phone application that combines weather data, satellite imagery, and pictures taken by farmers with their smartphones (image recognition).

Theme 2 - Market Linkages (Off-taker Market Access) ChallengeContext: While 83% of the Kenyan farm households sell part of their crop production (the rest are subsistence farmers that consume everything they produce), the majority of Kenyan SHFs participate in poorly structured “loose” or “semi-loose” value chains rather than in “tight” commercial value chains that are linked to large domestic or export-oriented buyers. This means that most Kenyan farmers struggle to find guaranteed buyers for their produce (with a range of downstream effects on their earnings). When they do sell their produce, Kenyan farmers struggle to secure sufficiently high prices and lose substantial value to various intermediaries between the farm gate and the end-buyer. Fast and reliable access to markets is critical for Kenyan farmers’ success. Obstacles to such access include asymmetric information on production volumes and prices, perceived or actual low quality of produce (from the perspective of high value buyers), limited knowledge of and physical access to high quality buyers/offtakers, and timing effects (e.g., markets exist, but farmer is unable to get produce to the market at the right time).

Disruptive technologies for this track included a wide range of digitally enabled market linkage (i.e., off-taker market access) models that match sellers with buyers, reduce information asymmetries, or dramatically reduce the costs for agribusiness of formalizing and managing previously loose smallholder value chains.

Key impact question/objective for this track: Given limited SHF linkages and access to markets, how can the DAT solution facilitate market links between produce buyers and produce sellers along the value chain?

Challengers

Farmshine's platform helps smallholder farmers aggregate and sell their harvests directly to reliable commodity companies.

Farmster is a digital platform that operates over an SMS Chatbot for farmers and a mobile Application for local buyers. Farmers use the Chatbot to answer basic questions about their expected harvest: location, crop, expected quantity, and harvest date. Buyers receive this information through an app and directly reach farmers.

M-shamba is a Nairobi based Start-up that has been working with farmers across East Africa to effectively deploy farming technologies among smallholder farmers using basic mobile phones. The innovation focuses on the use of simple phones commonly known as feature phones to deliver vital information to the smallholder farmers even in remote areas.

TruTrade is a social enterprise that digitizes value chain transactions making rural agricultural markets work better for farmers, aggregators and buyers. TruTrade’s service provides farmers with reliable routes to market and fair prices as well as agribusinesses and wholesalers with traceable produce to meet their quality specifications.

Tulaa is a marketplace for smallholder farmers in Africa. Using mobile technology and artificial intelligence, Tulaa provides quality inputs like fertilizer on credit, tailored advice, and access to reputable buyers to smallholder farmers.

Theme 3 - Farmer Financial Inclusion ChallengeContext: Financial inclusion has significantly increased in rural Kenya. However, access to agricultural finance for small and medium farmers is still limited in Kenya. Only 10% of the smallholder farmers have access to financial services including credit and insurance (<4% of SHFs). A growing number of Kenyan farmers, estimated at ~30% use mobile money for payments, but very few (<5%) consistently pay for their inputs or sell their produce via mobile money transactions. The quantity of credit is also inadequate with only 4% of credit supply flowing to the agriculture sector. Many factors have hampered access to financial services. These include lack of reliable data to support agricultural lending decisions, lack of collaterals to secure financing, the high transaction cost of accessing and delivering financial services to rural areas, and lack of data platforms for assessing risk and delivering financial services (e.g., high costs of traditional claims processing for agri insurance). Additionally, the high cost of credit translates into a lack of demand for credit by farmers.

Disruptive technologies for this track included a range of fintech models. For credit and insurance products, these DAT models typically incorporate digital channels and new types of data (e.g., weather, soil, crop yield estimation, etc.) for identifying new customers, assessing customer risks, developing/designing new financial products, monitoring and mitigating portfolio risks, managing client relationships, and running other vital operations like credit collections and insurance claims processing. The DAT solution providers are not necessarily financial institutions themselves, many are data analytics and digitalization intermediaries that work with financial institutions as their B2B clients to enable them to tap into new smallholder markets, deploy new products, and reduce transaction costs and risks. In the payments and savings space, financial

inclusion DAT models typically include the use of digital payment or digital savings accounts “agri-wallets” to improve farmer access to these vital financial services.

Key impact question/objective for this track: How can your technology help to expand coverage of financial services to farmers, including credit, savings, insurance, and low cost payments?

Challengers

ACRE is a service provider that links farmers to insurance products so that they can confidently invest in their farms. ACRE automates weather risk modeling, payments and communication through SMS and USSD platforms, claims calculations, and disbursement through mobile money.

Arifu is a social enterprise making it possible for the least served people to access the knowledge they need on financial services from the organizations they trust on any mobile phone. Arifu provides both an education technology platform and a content digitization service.

Cellulant has built a blockchain based smart contracting and customer relationship management; connecting them to market and helping them sell their goods to a diverse range of corporate buyers. Birthed in Nigeria and nurtured in Liberia, this platform (Agrikore) gives the farmers access to financial services and government subsidy programs to help reduce their costs and increase yields.

Agri-wallet is a platform that enables financial inclusion of all value chain actors around smallholder farmers.

Juhudi Kilimo is a financial services provider to rural smallholder farmers and micro-entrepreneurs with operations in 34 locations across 24 counties in Kenya, it operates through Grameen model.

Theme 4 - Data Analytics and Intelligence ChallengeContext: The rapid development of data infrastructure, profusion of digital technologies, and low-cost precision agriculture devices (ICT, Drone Aerial Surveillance, Satellite GIS, Weather Data Analytics, Blockchain, Internet of Things) in Kenya has the potential to deliver farm-level, geospatial, and real-time analytics to inform policies and targeted investments by governments, agribusinesses, and various types of intermediary service providers. In many cases, generating and accessing large scale national data sets is a costly challenge for any individual player in the market. In other cases, even when data is affordable, it is simply not accessible and not shareable across silos (e.g., private sector data sets that companies may have few incentives to share with the broader ecosystem). Certain types of data have strong public good components and rely on substantial upfront investments into data capture and analytics infrastructure that the private sector may be unwilling to subsidize (e.g., weather data, soil data). Finally, many Kenyan agriculture ecosystem actors lack the scarce data analytics and big data science skills that capturing, cleaning, and analysing large agriculture and agronomy data sets require. Disruptive technologies that can address these challenges include new types of data collection and data analytics players including those that focus on geospatial agronomy analytics (e.g., field trial, crop testing data), weather and climate data, soil data, drone surveillance data, or models that integrate across a number of different data layers to generate insights that can feed into various

downstream use cases including advisory services, macro agri intelligence, and financial inclusion models.The DAT challenge participants covered several of these models including, most notably, the sourcing and analytics of geospatial satellite and drone data, as well as weather and soil data analytics.Key impact question/objective for this track: How can your DAT innovation enable the large-scale collection, analysis, visualization and deployment of high-resolution, high-frequency, and low-cost agricultural data by public and private entities to enhance sector intelligence and farmer services?

Challengers

Agrocares offers a unique operating system combining agronomic knowledge (in a smart phone) application, inhouse developed sensor technology, databases for soil, feed and leaf and deep learning algorithms.

Astral Aerial is a drone operator. Offers up to date, problem-specific data to farmers using drones (a drone covers 1000 acres per flight, with sensors to detect crop health at an affordable price).

Capture Solutions enables digital payment and advances to small scale farmers through a fully traceable supply chain with an easy to use solution.

Oakar’s solution package offers farmers and other stakeholders access the latest knowledge, training, practices, data and mechanization best suited for them. Oakar’s Analytics platform incorporates dynamic datasets that can provide market information and facilitate easy links between producers and markets.

UjuziKilimo provides a simple and fast way for smallholder farmers to monitor soil fertility. UjuziKilimo’s proprietary Sensor technology SoilPal is a GPS and internet enabled device with sensors that is used in farms to monitor the levels of macro nutrients, weather, soil pH and moisture content which directs water, lime and fertilizer nutrient application rates based on local requirements.

Jury Composition and Judging Criteria The Jury: The Challenge was judged by a 5-member jury on the first day of the conference (April 5th) and a 5-member jury on the second day of the conference (April 6th).The jury members included:DAY 1 (April 5Th)

Day 2 (April 6Th)

The World Bank team, in collaboration with Dalberg and discussions with other partners, aligned on eight individual criteria and two group summary criteria for judging the Challengers based on factors that show readiness to be part of the One Million Farmer Initiative. The eight judging criteria included:1. Product/service quality

The product addresses the challenge core question (see challenge track descriptions)

The product meets a pressing market need and/or major obstacle for ag transformation

The product has strong additionality relative to other solutions

Shaun Ferris Director of Agriculture

and Livelihoods,

Catholic Relief Service

John KimaniProject

Coordinator, National

Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project

Anup JagwaniPrincipal

Investment Officer,

International Financial

Corporation (IFC)

Benjamin MakaiSenior

Manager, Technology for Development,

Safaricom

Vikas Choudhary

Senior Agricultural Specialist, The World

Bank Group

Tom Dienya Head of

Agricultural Stats, Kenya

Climate Smart Agriculture

Project (KCSAP)

Sandeep Gondhalekar

Chief Transformatio

n Officer, Kuza Biashara

Leesa ShraderAgriFin

Accelerate Program Director,

Mercy Corps

Klaus Tilmes Senior

Advisor, The World

Bank Group

Joanne Gaskell Senior

Agriculture Economist, The World

Bank Group

Clarity of the product value proposition for smallholder farmers, agribusinesses, and other SHF value chain intermediaries (in the case of B2B products and services)

Quality of the product/service vis-à-vis market alternatives 2. Scalability

There is evidence that the product/service can achieve substantial scale (3-5X of current size) or (in rare instances) has already reached very substantial scale in Kenya

Jury’s assessment is that the scale up plan is realistic Product has competitive positioning vis-à-vis other offerings Scalability is not focused on number of registered farmers but rather

farmers who are actively engaged and using product3. Ecosystem engagement

Readiness and willingness to collaborate/partner with others on the One Million Farmer Initiative platform

Willingness to generate and share public goods, particularly data public goods, with others on platform and/or broader ecosystems (e.g., anonymized farmer registry data, soil mapping data, GIS data)

4. Impact Proven impact either at pilot or broader deployment scale that includes

achievement of key impact objectives, with precise details varying by track, but translating into improved productivity, income, resilience of farmers

Where known, impact is proxied by evidence from internal or external evaluations with the gold standard being independent third-party evaluations (internal M&E metrics considered but given lower weight)

Track specific impact metrics to consider include:o Agricultural Productivity

Improvement of yields Outcome level proxies

Improved farmer knowledge/awareness of good agricultural practices, improved decision quality, etc.

Labour-, input-, resource efficiency, and time savings due to access to mechanization technologies

Increased uptake and use of production input volumes relative to baselines

o Market Linkages Improved farmer incomes/profits Outcome level proxies

Marketed volumes Access to better and/or more guaranteed prices Lower cost for off-taker in reaching and managing

farmer Inclusion in more formal / commercial value chains

o Farmer Financial Inclusion Improved yields Improved income Outcome level proxies

Farmer access to payments, credit, insurance vs market alternatives

Cost of financial products relative to market Reduction in risks and costs for finance providers

due to B2B fintech products and services Farmer access to more formal financial services

o Data Analytics and Intelligence Improved yields and incomes as a result of better

decisions being made by decision makers across value chains (i.e., better market planning, better resource allocation, etc.)

Outcome level proxies Greater availability of and access to valuable data

(e.g., high frequency, real time, farm or field level, unique depth such for soil diagnostics, etc.)

Lower cost of data access Quality of data relative to market

5. Business model sustainability / financial viability For commercial DAT solutions, business model sustainability is defined

as the likelihood that the proposed model/approach will be commercially viable i.e., has potential to breakeven and ideally is already profitable

For non-commercial or blended model, business model sustainability is defined as the ability to generate at least some earned revenues and to fill the gap with substantial on-going government or donor results based funding based on the outcomes of the products/service

Relevant considerations for commercial financial viability include:o Evidence of profitability or clear path to profitabilityo Clearly defined revenue / monetization model with some evidence

that the model is supported by market realitieso Funding raised to date to fuel business expansion and growth

Relevant considerations for non-commercial or blended models include:o Significant donor/govt funding secured for scale / expansiono Long track record of successful fundraisingo Evidence of / compelling plan to increase earned revenue to meet

any grant revenue shortfalls6. Pitch delivery

The overall pitch should be clear and informative Pitch should be engaging and interesting Presenter is confident The visual aids are clear and easy to understand

Finally in order to ensure that the Challengers would most benefit (from) the platform, two additional criteria were used:7. Company will benefit most from the platform

The company will benefit the most from financial and incubation services

8. Company that offers the most value-add to the farmers on the platform The company is answering the most pressing needs of farmers (focus

on priority crop, or major farmer pain-point)

Selection of the First Cohort of DAT Innovators by the JuryChallengers were ranked and evaluated on each criterion by each jury member on the basis of information available in challenger dossiers, pitch presentations, responses to jury questions during pitch discussions, and jury members expert judgement of DAT business models and sector trends. The eight criteria were weighted based on the level of their importance for the One Million Farmer Initiative program design. Jury deliberations followed each pitching session to compute average scores as well as a rank ordering of challengers.Based on normalized scores, the first cohort of DATs selected were:

Agricultural Productivity Theme

Digital Green uses a video approach to amplify extension providers’ effectiveness to improve farmers’ livelihoods. They partner with existing extension officers to provide videos with highly localized content, human mediators to reinforce key messages and use near real-time data and feedback from farmers to inform adjustments on the content of the videos.

Farmers Pride leverages technology and franchising to break down barriers that have limited success of farmers. They provide a one stop village level online mobile app/web platform popularly known as DIGISHOP that ensures access to all the necessary inputs, services and information farmers need.

DigiCow provides extension services to farmers using an innovative mobile phone solution. They provide training through a mobile app in which farmers can also chat and share ideas. Voice-based training coupled with SMSs is provided to farmers without access to smartphones.

Precision Agriculture for Development provides low-cost mobile agronomic advice to farmers that is accessible, relevant, and customized to boost yields.

Sunculture offers solar-powered irrigation systems to smallholder farmers and helps provide financing for acquiring these machineries to smallholder farmers.

Market Linkages Theme

M-shamba is a Nairobi based Start-up that has been working with farmers across East Africa to effectively deploy farming technologies among smallholder farmers using basic mobile phones. The innovation focuses on the use of simple phones commonly known as feature phones to deliver vital information to the smallholder farmers even in remote areas.

TruTrade is a social enterprise that digitizes value chain transactions making rural agricultural markets work better for farmers, aggregators and buyers. TruTrade’s service provides farmers with reliable routes to market and fair prices as well as agribusinesses and wholesalers with traceable produce to meet their quality specifications.

Tulaa is a marketplace for smallholder farmers in Africa. Using mobile technology and artificial intelligence, Tulaa provides quality inputs like fertilizer on credit, tailored advice, and access to reputable buyers to smallholder farmers.

Farmer Financial Inclusion Theme

ACRE is a service provider that links farmers to insurance products so that they can confidently invest in their farms. ACRE automates weather risk modeling, payments and communication through SMS and USSD platforms, claims calculations, and disbursement through mobile money.

Arifu is a social enterprise making it possible for the least served people to access the knowledge they need on financial services from the organizations they trust on any mobile phone. Arifu provides both an education technology platform and a content digitization service.

Agri-wallet is a platform that enables financial inclusion of all value chain actors around smallholder farmers.

Data Analytics and Intelligence Theme

Astral Aerial is a drone operator. Offers up to date, problem-specific data to farmers using drones (a drone covers 1000 acres per flight, with sensors to detect crop health at an affordable price).

Oakar’s solution package offers farmers and other stakeholders access the latest knowledge, training, practices, data and mechanization best suited for them. Oakar’s Analytics platform incorporates dynamic datasets that can provide market information and facilitate easy links between producers and markets.

UjuziKilimo provides a simple and fast way for smallholder farmers to monitor soil fertility. UjuziKilimo’s proprietary Sensor technology SoilPal is a GPS and internet enabled device with sensors that is used in farms to monitor the levels of macro nutrients, weather, soil pH and moisture content which directs water, lime and fertilizer nutrient application rates based on local requirements.

Partners

The World Bank GroupThe World Bank works with low and middle-income countries and partners to provide innovation and resources so that the food system lifts people out of poverty, produces safe and nutritious food for all, and is more sustainable and resilient in the face of resource constraints and climate change.Learn more: www.worldbank.org/agriculture

The Korea-World Bank Partnership FacilityThe Korea-World Bank Group Partnership Facility (KWPF), established in May 2013, is an initiative to strengthen ties between the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance (MoEF) and the World Bank Group (WBG). The facility’s overall objective is to assist developing member countries of the WBG in achieving inclusive and sustainable economic growth and to foster broader dialogue on economic development issues. The facility supports a broad range of economic development opportunities with a focus on promoting best practices by leveraging the WBG’s knowledge and convening power and Korea’s expertise. The Government of Korea provided US$90 million from FY14 to FY16 and a replenishment of US$90 million from FY17 to FY19 through this facility.Learn more: http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/korea-world-bank-group-partnership-facility

The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI)The ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation has a vision to have a secure and wealthy Nation anchored by an innovative, commercially oriented and competitive agricultural sector. To achieve its vision, its strategic objectives are to create an enabling environment for Agricultural development, to increase productivity and outputs in agricultural sector, to enhance national food security, to improve market access and trade and to strengthen Institutional capacityLearn more: http://www.kilimo.go.ke/The United Nations Partnership for SDGs PlatformThe Partnerships for SDGs online platform is United Nations’ global registry of voluntary commitments and multi-stakeholder partnerships made in support of sustainable development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The Partnerships for SDGs platform also facilitates the sharing knowledge and expertise among multi-stakeholder SDG-related partnerships and voluntary commitments, and for providing periodic updates on their progress.Learn more: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnerships/

Kuza BiasharaKuza Biashara is an organization offering small business learning, training and empowerment in Africa. The organization is based in Nairobi, Kenya. It is a mobile first micro-learning platform offering youth, women & micro-entrepreneurs from informal communities opportunities to learn, connect & grow on their own terms and at their own convenience.Learn more: http://www.kuzabiashara.co.ke/Dalberg AdvisorsDalberg Advisors is a strategic advisory firm which brings the best of private sector strategy skills and rigorous analytical capabilities with deep knowledge and networks across emerging and frontier markets. We work collaboratively across the public, private and philanthropic sectors to fuel inclusive growth and help clients achieve their goals. Learn More: https://www.dalberg.com/what-we-do/dalberg-advisors