Kenya will get 15,000 smart weather stations under a programme launched in Nairobi on Friday by Austrian agricultural technology firm Pessl Instruments. Kenya is the first stop in a plan to install up to 100,000 of the devices across Africa.

The programme, called UpYield4Africa, aims to give smallholder farmers detailed local information on rainfall, temperature, humidity, soil moisture and leaf wetness. Farmers can use this to decide when to plant, irrigate and apply fertiliser, and when to act against pests and crop diseases.

How the system works

The stations are sold under Pessl's METOS brand. They send their readings to the company's FieldClimate platform, which farmers can use through web and mobile apps to get local forecasts and crop disease models.

AgriMet Data Kenya is the local implementing partner. It will handle distribution, installation and maintenance, train farmers and give technical support.

Pessl, founded in 1984 and headquartered in Weiz, Austria, says it operates in 85 countries. FieldClimate has been running since 2005.

"Smallholder farmers need reliable, localised information to make better decisions throughout the farming cycle," founder and chief executive Gottfried Pessl said at the launch.

Clusters, advisers and buyers

The plan goes further than the hardware. Farmers will be grouped into production clusters supported by digital farm advisers, who will turn the weather and crop data into practical advice on which inputs to buy and how to plan production around what the market wants.

The clusters will also link farmers to input suppliers, lenders, shared infrastructure and commercial buyers. The idea is to reduce the risk of growing a crop with no guaranteed market, a common problem for Kenyan smallholders who often struggle to meet buyers' volume and quality demands.

According to The Star, a proposed financing arrangement involves Austrian lenders and a Kenyan bank, with KCB's participation still provisional. Loans would go through a cluster company or produce buyer, so individual farmers would not need to pledge land or other personal assets as collateral. The terms still depend on due diligence and approvals, including from Austria's export credit agency OeKB.

Diplomatic backing

Austrian Ambassador to Kenya Simone Knapp endorsed the programme. She described it as part of growing cooperation between Kenya and Austria on agricultural technology, food security and farm productivity.

Companies represented at the launch included Safaricom, Bayer Crop Science, FreshCrop Limited and the SAI Platform.

The rollout adds to existing weather-monitoring efforts in Kenya, including the state's network of automatic weather stations. It comes as farmers face less predictable seasons, and as the Kenya Meteorological Department forecasts an El Nino-influenced short rains season with above-average rainfall over most of the country.

The firm has not published a timeline for installing all 15,000 stations or said how much farmers will pay to use the service.

Photos: The Standard; The Star. Thumbnail design: HAMASTA MEDIA.