Dairy sector operations set to go high-tech with new portal
What you need to know:
The online portal is an initiative of the Kenya Dairy Board (KDB) and Agritrace Limited – a local Application Service Provider (ASP) that focuses mainly on agribusiness initiatives.
Kenya’s vast dairy industry comprises various players yet it is often hard to determine what each of them does. But this could soon be history.
The government will later this year roll out the Dairy Management Information System (E-dairy) which it hopes will help streamline all activities in this crucial sector’s value chain.
The online portal is an initiative of the Kenya Dairy Board (KDB) and Agritrace Limited, a local Application Service Provider (ASP) that focuses mainly on agribusiness initiatives.
The dairy sector is a major revenue earner for the country, supporting about one million smallholder farmers and creating approximately 750,000 direct jobs and 500,000 indirect ones annually. E-dairy was, therefore, created to automate all operations in the sector and increase the speed and efficiency of transactions. SEE VIDEO
The platform will also be a one-stop-shop for information which is currently scant, impeding further growth of this multibillion shilling sector that contributes more than four per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“Information that is fed into this system will assist various stakeholders to plan and make informed decisions about various dairy activities,” Mr Machira Gichohi, KDB’s Managing Director told Digital Business.
Dairy farmers across the country are normally organised in co-operative societies which collect milk from their members and transport it in bulk to processing plants.
It is at this point that farmers first interact with the system through registration process where co-operative officials ask them for their details — including names, where they live and their national identification numbers. Upon registration, farmers receive a smart card with a unique identification number.
Hesborn Opondo, an Information Technology expert from Agritrace says the E-dairy platform will allow these co-operatives to automate all their operations with farmers seamlessly.
When a farmer delivers their milk, a specially designed electronic weighing machine, which is connected to the E-Diary tabulates the amount of milk each member has brought and feeds it into the system under their name. SEE VIDEO
“This automatic process allows co-operatives to easily and accurately determine the quantities of milk brought by each farmer without having to deal with a lot of paperwork,” said Mr Opondo.
Previously, this information would be recorded by hand on farmers’ paper cards and co-operative books. It would then be fed manually into a computer, a process that he says is not only time-consuming but is also prone to errors.
Since all milk records of farmers are stored in the system, they can be easily retrieved in the event that farmers lose their smart cards. All they will need is the unique identification code.
Another benefit of the system is that is it captures even decimal points during the weighing process, unlike the conventional manual machine that only registered whole numbers.
“If a farmer delivers 6.4kgs of milk, everything is captured. Previously, such a delivery would be indicated as 6kgs,” said Mr Opondo. “Farmers consequently get value for their produce since every drop of milk is accounted for.”
The system also enables co-operative societies to easily process milk payments and make payments on time. Another advantage of the E-dairy is that it keeps track of the commodities trail allowing prompt dispute-resolution in the event that a disagreement arises.
Aside from collecting milk from farmers, dairy co-operatives also offer credit services to their members. With the farmers’ financial records accurately available at the touch of a button, Mr Opondo says E-dairy will help them to easily identify those that qualify for advances.
On the educational front, the portal will contain a list of financial institutions that offer packages suitable to dairy farmers like processing companies which manufacture products like yoghurt, cheese, skimmed and fresh milk.
Co-operatives will also benefit as E-dairy will provide information on appropriate milk analyser machines that can effectively detect anomalies in milk such as adulteration. The most common form of this vice is addition of water.
Government statistics show that the country produces about five billion litres of milk annually. However, this milk is only valuable if it remains fresh.
