KTDA unveils mobile application and SMS code to help farmers track their earning

Jul 21, 2023 - 12:27

Tea pickers at a tea plantation in Chinga, Othaya, Nyeri County. KTDA has unveiled a mobile application and SMS code to help farmers to enhance communication between the agency and the smallholder farmers.Photo: Wangari Mwangi/KNA

Nyeri

Friday, July 21, 2023

KNA by Wangari Mwangi

The over 650,000 smallholder tea farmers affiliated to the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) will now be able to track their green leaf payment at the click of a button after the agency unveiled a mobile application, a Short Messaging Service (SMS) and an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) platform to enhance communication with framers.

Through these platforms, tea farmers will also be able to receive daily, weekly and monthly notifications on the quantity of plucked tea weights delivered to the factories and also receive extension services.

According to KTDA Management Services Managing Director Mr. Julius Onguso, for the first time since the government rolled out the subsidized fertilizer programme in 2022, tea farmers will now be able to make enquiries on fertilizer disbursement.

Onguso said the rollout of the KTDA Farmers App, SMS and USSD platforms are part of the agency’s reform agenda which is aimed at providing transparency and accountability by giving farmers full visibility of the status of their accounts.

The Director noted that the multi-approach rollout would guarantee farmers the flexibility and ability to access the status of their accounts on their mobile phones. “This heralds the digital transformation of KTDA’s service offering to its farmers which we believe will go a long way towards sustained efficiency,” he said in a press release.

The App which was piloted in eight factories prior to the roll out will provide information about various KTDA services to registered farmers. On the other hand, the SMS subscription code 20213 will facilitate direct communication between the farmer and the factory.

Farmers have also been advised to use the code *302#to make enquiries on green leaf deliveries, payment status for green leaf delivered and fertilizer disbursement.

“By embracing and leveraging technology to enhance our communication and engagement with our farmers, we believe that this will enhance the transparency and credibility of all our undertakings for the farmers,” said Onguso.

Courtesy ; K. N. A