Goldkeys technology is empowering farmers in Eldoret by enabling them to identify genuine seeds in agricultural stores. This technology is being used by Brian Mibey, the Director of Soy Kabatik Agricultural Store located in Eldoret.
Mibey says that farmers come all over Uasin Gishu County to purchase seeds and fertilizers from his store because they know he sells genuine products. He uses the GoldKeys technology to find out if his supplier is giving him original or fake products. This has enabled farmers in the region to benefit and get their value of money when they purchase farm implements.
He claims that this technology has enabled him and other agro stores using it in Kenya to break unscrupulous business people who are conning farmers. His agricultural store has enjoyed many customers due to his reliability to sell products that perform on the farm. This has made his store the “go to” shop for agricultural products.
“Goldkeys technology uses an SMS alert to detect fake seeds. Farmers scratch the bar-code number on the product and send the batch number as an SMS to 1393 and gets a feedback in five seconds whether the product is genuine or not.” Says Mr Mibey
As a farmer himself hailing from Turbo Constituency, Mr Mibey feels the pain of most farmers in Kenya because he knows the feeling of losing your crops on the farm. Before selling fertilizers or seeds to farmers, he advises them to check their authenticity using the technology. Any mobile phone on any network is able to detect the genuine or fake products. Mr Mibey says depending on the season, his shop receives between 50 and 100 customers a day.
He stocks products majorly from the Kenya Seed Company Limited and the East Africa Seed Company, which are recognized by the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) are producers of quality agricultural inputs.
