Data Collection Capacity Building
Just over a hundred lead farmers have been equipped on web-based data collection in the ongoing efforts to build food security for households.
The 104 farmers, 81 women and 23 men, were drawn from Mukothima, Nkondi and Gatunga Wards of Tharaka Nithi County, were trained on the use of Kobotool to collect data from farmers within their communities. They are part of the team spearheading the implementation of a Food Security project being implemented by NCCK with support from the United Church of Canada and the Canadian Food Grains Bank.
The Lead Farmers organize community members into farming groups where they train them on Conservation Agriculture principles and practices, and then track their performance every season. The routine data collection ensures that interventions under the project are evidence-based, adaptive and responsive to the needs of the target communities. A further 106 Lead Farmers will be trained in the course of the week.
Using the online Kobotoolbox, the lead farmers will document in realtime the land each farmer has put under Conservation Agriculture, the yields they got in the last season, as well as their challenges and successes.
The training follows the issuance of advanced smartphones to the Lead Farmers in December 2024.
