Kilimo-Online is a product developed by Kisasa Technologies, a registered business in Kenya, that focuses on providing a reliable and usable IT solution to the farmers and the management in agricultural cooperative societies in the rural areas. The software uses web and SMS technology to provide a means of relaying information and enhancing quality service delivery to the farmers. Kilimo-Online platform ensures the farmer is always updated and transparency is a key pillar and core value!
Kilimo-Online has two major subsystems, namely: Administrative subsystem and SMS processing subsystem.
web based and has the following functionality:
script that has the following capability:
Gikambura Dairy Farmers’ co-operative society is in the rural areas in the heart of Kikuyu. It is a cooperative society that has a membership of about 380 members who deliver about 2,000 litres of milk daily on average. The cooperative society has adopted the use of modern technology in a bid to improve its internal business processes. The cooperative society sells the milk to the local people and resellers who market the milk elsewhere. The farmers are given farm inputs on credit and the system has helped them to get updated credit amounts that can be lend to them, Instant SMS updates on the production amongst many other benefits outlined above.
Figure 1: A clerk using the former manual system which involved a lot of book keeping and reconciliation of multiple files.
Figure 2: A digital weighing scale indicating the weight of a farmer’s produce.
Figure 3: A worker at the co-operative society serving a farmer using the system.
Figure 4: A thermal printer for printing receipts for the farmers. The system also sends an SMS update to the farmer with the running total and the current weigh scale reading.