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The Nairobian

E-voucher helps farmers tame high cost of inputs

Market

By Jennifer Anyango | Sep 16, 2022

Farmers are eagerly waiting for new fertiliser prices which President William Ruto said he would announce. While this is laudable, it is worth noting that the Ministry of Agriculture already has the e-voucher system after the government subsidised farm inputs to the tune of Sh1.3 billion.

How does it work? Farmers are trained on the programme and their details captured by the Ministry of Agriculture to allow them access farm inputs at a subsidised price at the participating outlets. The farmer pays 60 per cent of the selling price and the government subsidises 40 per cent.

Only agro dealers and county extension officers are required to install an e-voucher application on their gadgets or phones, the farmers only require having a simple phone with 4G or 5G SIM card. Already, 716,485 farmers have been registered and uploaded in the e-voucher system.

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"This captures the farmers' bio-data and transmits it to the ministry servers in Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organisation, Nairobi. Farmers and the county extension staff are then trained on the programme and appropriate applications installed in their phones or tablets," says Ministry of Agriculture article.

Farmers receive messages that require them to be verified by the sub county agricultural officers or their ward agricultural officers.

A registered farmer visits the ward agricultural officer who upon searching his details in the system, verifies the farmer and issues him or her with the e-voucher.

"Upon verification, farmers then receive e-voucher messages bearing unique codes which they take to the agro dealers to begin the e-voucher redemption process," reads the statement.

The agro-dealers then input the special unique voucher codes in their systems that prompts the farmers to input their M-pesa PIN. The system then automatically deducts 60 per cent of the inputs cost, triggering a 40 per cent top up from the ministry's till number.

"This sums up to 100 per cent and is credited to the agro dealers till number in real time hence releasing the farmer's merchandise," the statement says.

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