

innovation to agricultural extension
in Africa


inputs companies to improve
adoption of improved inputs and
methods by smallholder farmers.


The primary intervention for addressing smallholder agriculture yield gaps is improving coverage of public extension services and access to improved and appropriate inputs.
There are over 5.6 million farming households in Kenya tilling 89% of agricultural land for subsistence purposes. These households make up 91% of all farming households in Kenya. The challenge of addressing food and nutrition security can therefore only be addressed if these households are able to produce enough food for subsistence.
About the Extension Support Program
The Extension Support Program provides evidence-informed interventions that help governments and communities address the yield gaps experienced by smallholder farmers. Through projects like the Village Based Advisors, that address the coverage one extension services, and partnerships with inputs companies that ensure new and improved technologies are available, we make it possible to close that gap and address household food insecurity.
The primary intervention for dealing with the yield gap is improving coverage of public extension services. Unfortunately in Kenya, with low spending in the agriculture sector (less than 6% of budget) very little support goes to extension services resulting in a very high extension to farmer ratio and only 21% of farmers reporting to have had an interaction with extension services from the public sector.
The objectives of the program are therefore to:
- Provide evidence to inform decisions by the public sector in support of new methods or inputs by smallholder farmers along priority commodity value chains.
- Provide technology infrastructure to improve data collection and the relationships between various actors in commodity value chains.
- Provide advisory and technical support to governments for expansion of extension service coverage for food security critical value chains.
Projects
Village Based Advisors Project
Project Name: Village Based Advisors
Country: Kenya
Coverage: Kiambu & Embu Counties
Description: The Village Based Advisors project addresses the challenge of high ratios of farmers to extension workers by recruiting and training peer farmers to provide basic agricultural extension services.
Start date: July 2019
End date: December 2020
Results: Pending
VBA Plus Platform
Project Name: VBA Plus
Country: Kenya
Coverage: National
Description: The VBA Plus project is a software platform designed to provide a mechanism to intermediate the relationship between Village Based Advisors, farmers, input companies and government extension officers.
Start date: July 2019
End date: July 2021
Results: Pending
The Team


Recent Articles
How Extension Support to Smallholder Farmers is Supporting Food Security During COVID-19
Seeing is Believing: Helping the Kenyan Farmer Adopt Good Agricultural Practice
Doubling Productivity Through Evidence-Informed Approaches
Partners



