Kenya is merging its national farmer database with soil health data from the Food and Agriculture Organization, aiming to give farmers more precise advice on fertiliser use and cut the waste that erodes both yields and farm incomes. Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe discussed the plan with FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol at the organisation’s Rome headquarters.
The initiative centres on the Kenya Integrated Agricultural Management Information System, known as KIAMIS, which already hosts millions of registered farmers and delivers input access, soil health information and advisory services directly to their phones. Kenya is now integrating KIAMIS with the Kenya Agricultural Digital Information Centre, or KADIC, to build a single national agricultural data hub.
Soil data for the merged system will come partly from FAO’s Soil Doctors Programme, which already trains farmers and extension officers in parts of Kenya in soil testing, diagnosis and sustainable management. That data is expected to feed directly into KIAMIS, giving farmers location-specific guidance rather than blanket fertiliser recommendations.
Soil health champions to bridge science and farms
Kenyan officials plan to form a network of soil health champions, tasked with translating soil science into practical advice farmers can act on without specialist training. The government also intends to train additional soil scientists, addressing a shortage that has limited how widely soil testing services currently reach smallholders.
Kenya’s push reflects a broader regional problem: many smallholder farmers apply fertiliser based on habit or cost rather than actual soil need, which can waste money on nutrients a field does not require while leaving genuine deficiencies unaddressed. Soil health data, paired with a platform already reaching millions of farmers through KIAMIS, offers a route to more targeted use of scarce agricultural inputs.
No figures yet on reach or funding
Neither Kenya’s agriculture ministry nor the FAO has published figures for how many counties, farmers or hectares the integrated soil data system will cover once complete, nor disclosed a funding envelope for the rollout. The FAO has framed its role as technical support for a Kenyan-led digital agriculture agenda rather than a funded programme with fixed targets.
The announcement follows years of donor and government interest in digitising Kenyan agriculture, with KIAMIS itself built up over several years into one of the continent’s larger farmer-registration platforms. Integrating soil health data is intended to make that existing digital reach more useful, rather than building a new system from scratch.
