As the rains pound various parts of the country, there is renewed hope among farmers after the longest drought in 40 years occasioned by failed rains.

In Western region, where agriculture is the backbone of the economy, the roads are deserted as most residents are busy in their farms. Here, sugarcane farming is the main agricultural activity.

In a bid to help farmers increase production, West Kenya Sugar Company has developed a technology—Digicane— that will give real time data on cane availability in farmers’ fields.

Digicane technology is an online platform that locates and keeps track of the cane development in the field of the contracted farmers.  

Over the last two months, the company had an initiative that sought to reach farmers. They carried out community engagement meetings and radio talk shows to educate farmers on their services that were to be rolled out once the rains begun to improve cane farming.

The sensitisation on steps the farmers should take included fertilizer requests, soil sampling by agronomists, seed cane requests and its process, land cultivation and furrowing, cane registration, effective communication channels with field staff, sweet cane price per ton.

Charles Ochola of West Kenya Sugar Company said the technology with farmers’ database, maps cane fields, making it efficient in planning, especially during contracting and cane harvesting stage.

Ochola said the cane recorded in the system does not tally with what is in the fields.

“The current system that we are using shows there is a lot of cane in the field but this cannot be physically located. Digicane technology will help us to keep track of cane in the fields and give real time information and data. Before the technology came, field agents and the cane supervisors were not giving real time data on how much cane is out there in the field,” Ochola told the Star.

He said the company will now be able to locate the field using the GPS without assistance of the supervisors or field agents. The technology will give 80 to 90 per cent of actual information on what is on the ground.

“Through the use of this technology, we will be able to plan and tell the quality and quantity of cane with our farmers and this will help us to achieve our targets for the next quarter. We predict that we will be able to increase production by at least 70 per cent,” Ochola said.

He added that the Digicane platform is in initial stages but will be fully operational in the next three to four months.

The company’s field assistants and supervisors have been sensitising cane farmers to plant cane and harvest once the crop matures.

Shiundu, a new contracted farmer from Shianda, lauded the company for their services at the grassroots.

Speaking during tree ferrying exercise led by West Kenya Sugar Company (Kabras) from Shikusa Prison at Lubao to Kakamega Showground, Shiundu said he requested to be linked to one of company’s field supervisors so that he could get their services in his acre of land.

“I  heard Rai Group External and Internal Communication Manager advocating this good programme as I was listening to a radio show one evening.

"It seemed like a good plan and I got interested to be part of Kabras Farmers Community. Their cane price was higher than that of other cane milling companies. This motivated me even further as my goal is to make profits,” Shiundu said.

Peter Mulievi, a farmer who has worked with the company, said it has helped him earn more.

"I have been with this company since its inception and it has helped me own vehicles that have raised my income. I also commend the company for increasing cane price per tonne to Sh5,500. CO 945 type of seed cane is the one which I have been planting for over a decade. At four months I do top dressing using Urea fertilizer to boost my yields during harvesting time,” he said.