Nakuru turns to digital tools to boost potato farming
By Jane Ngugi and Carolyne Nyakio (KNA)
Potato farmers in Nakuru County will benefit from improved access to agricultural extension services through VarScout, a digital platform designed to provide timely information on crop varieties, pests, diseases, weather, markets and farming practices.
The platform, developed by the International Potato Center (CIP) in partnership with RESONANZ Group GmbH, uses cloud-based mobile and online applications to collect, store, monitor and visualise information on potato varieties and link farmers to agricultural information and markets.
County Chief Officer for Agriculture Eng. Margaret Kinyanjui said VarScout will help address gaps in access to extension services, particularly in areas facing shortages of physical agricultural officers.
She said the platform will also help the county understand farmers’ needs and make evidence-based decisions across the potato value chain.
“From digital advisories on weather and planting information to marketing of produce and accessing financial and insurance services, agriculture in Nakuru County is coming of age,” she said.
Kinyanjui said the technology would provide farmers with customised e-extension services incorporating agro-weather information, pest and disease trends and market prices.
The platform targets four key areas: productivity, market linkages, financial inclusion and data analytics, with young people identified as a major target group because of their high use of digital technologies.
The VarScout platform also incorporates interactive voice response services and real-time soil testing technology, enabling farmers to access agricultural information through mobile phones while supporting more precise soil-related advice.
Kinyanjui said the technology would enable agricultural officers and field teams to digitally collect and analyse information on potato varieties grown by farmers, generating evidence to guide extension services, seed interventions, research and investment.
The progress of the initiative was reviewed during a meeting involving the County Government of Nakuru, CIP and field teams to assess data collected through the platform, emerging trends and challenges affecting field-level data collection.
“Reliable agricultural data is critical to effective planning and service delivery,” said Eng. Kinyanjui, adding that the information would help the county identify what farmers are growing, where varieties are concentrated and the challenges they face.
Nakuru County Potato Liaison Officer Lynnette Echessa said accuracy and completeness of data are essential in ensuring that information collected through VarScout support meaningful decisions.
“Data is only useful when it is reliable and complete; we need to ensure that the data collected from farmers accurately reflects what is happening on the ground,” she said.
VarScout was introduced in Kenya in 2022, when CIP trained Ward Agricultural Extension Officers in major potato-producing counties to use the application for field data collection.
By March 2024, more than 1,070 potato field observations had been uploaded, while a scaling phase targeted more than 20,000 datasets from Nakuru and Meru.
A CIP study published in 2025 found that Shangi accounted for 73 per cent of potato area covered, followed by Steven at seven per cent and Sherekea at six per cent. It was also found that only 19.5 per cent of farmers surveyed used clean seed, with adoption in Nakuru standing at 21.5 per cent.
Farmers using clean seed achieved an average of 1.5 tonnes more yield per hectare than those using saved seed, highlighting the importance of reliable data in targeting seed-system interventions.
CIP notes that further methodological improvements and ground-truthing are needed to strengthen evidence generated through VarScout.
The county says continued collaboration with CIP and other partners will help translate digital farm data into targeted extension services, improved productivity, better incomes and a more resilient potato value chain.