Thika-based Jungle Nuts Company has introduced a mobile application called M-Shamba, which seeks to ease and speed up transactions between processors and farmers.
The GSM-powered application, which is set to be launched tomorrow will weed out middlemen, who have long exploited farmers through rudimentary and unreliable weighing methods.
Jungle Nuts is now providing weighing scales at collection points, where farmers’ harvest units are recorded on the M-Shamba platform and sent remotely to the firm’s head office.
Farmers who have been registered on the platform later receive a text message notifying them of their total yields, their expected payments and when they will be paid via mobile services. Patrick Wainana, the Jungle Nuts chief executive, told Digital Business that they plan to roll out the M-Shamba application to approximately 30,000 farmers across the country.
“This application will ensure that farmers are paid their dues since digital scales are more accurate than the spring scale that these middlemen have been using,” he said.
“The app will also weed out middlemen who have been buying nuts from our farmers illegally, claiming that they have been contracted by certified processors. They later sell the produce for higher prices in external markets.”
Farmers can also use the new application to secure loans from either Jungle Nuts or local banks against their produce, with the processor securing the debt in the latter case. Jungle Nuts buys macadamia from small-scale farmers in Kiambu, Murang’a, Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Embu, Meru, Kitale, Bungoma and Taita-Taveta counties.
One kilogramme retails at between Sh60 and Sh80.
The firm, which has 1,000 employees produces six brands of products which are all exported to the US, China and the UK. Mr Wainaina said there is no relationship with another app called M-Shamba that was unveiled nearly four years back by students from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.
The latter targets farmers with access to information on animal breeds and markets reports.
“We had an earlier application dubbed e-buy but this did not take off. Local developers have come up with a different concept which we are certain will be better received,” said Mr Wainaina.
