Kenya: Lack of information hampering agriculture

Lack of accurate up-to-date information on agro inputs is one of the major constraints to the agricultural productivity and to the development of business linkages and trade.

This was revealed yesterday by market information systems specialist Dr Cris Muyunda during the launch of the regional agricultural input market information and transparency system. "The use of agricultural inputs like fertilizers seeds and crop protection products in Eastern and southern Africa remains extremely low" said Muyunda whi is the CEO of the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa.

He said fertiliser use averages of about nine kgs per hectare which is way below the 50 kg per hectare which is a target agreed by African heads of state during the African summit in Abuja . "Policies of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and East African Community have emphasized on increased use of agro inputs in order to raise agricultural productivity," said Muyunda.

He added that IFDC has been making very important contributions in promoting the efficient use of these inputs. "IFDCs achievements in its focus area of increasing agricultural productivity in developing countries through the development and transfer of effective and environmentally sound crop nutrient technology," said Muyunda.

Muyunda added that to address this problem AMITSA was created to provide accessible data through an open and collaborative market information system.

AMITSA is joint initiative of the IFDC the east Africa community EAC and common market for Eastern and southern Africa in order to improve the accessibility to market the technical information on agro inputs.

The AMITSA network covers eight countries including Burundi, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia and has trained more than 230 agro dealers in 120 towns in the region to share monthly prices and sales trends.