New Report Says US Used Sh10 Million to Train Kenyan Farmers on How to Use Facebook

A newly released report shows that United States has spent more than 10 million shillings to train Kenyan farmers on how to use Facebook and Google.

The 2017 Festivus Waste Report says that United States Agency for International Development (USAID) reportedly used Sh 10,264,090.82 to educate Kenyan farmers on how to use world's largest social media network - Facebook and Global search engine - Google.

The report, released by United States Senator Rand Paul, claims that Kenyan farmers suffer from “device illiteracy,” with many lacking the ability “…to perform the basic handset operations needed to take advantage of these services.”

The report says part of the cash was used for the production of an Agricultural television program, Shamba Shape Up “where the hosts visit farms across Kenya on the brink of collapse and offer advice on how to save them, or to solve problems that confront them.”

“Farmers in Kenya could harness the power of mobile devices to improve their crops, but they suffer from “device illiteracy,” with many lacking the ability “…to perform the basic handset operations needed to take advantage of these services.”

"At least, this was the premise behind the Simu Shape Up: Edutainment to Shape Up Cell Phone use Among African Rural Farmers program, a USAID-funded effort to improve cell phone literacy among rural farmers in Kenya. Using this “edutainment” model, this project developed “educational short programming… to share the benefits of mobile programming for agriculture.”

"The project produced segments to air on the Shamba Shape Up television show, a reality format show airing on Citizen TV Kenya," the reports says.

"It turns out that farmers can send a text message to Shamba Shape Up to request a free brochure on any of the topics discussed by the show, with four to six thousand brochures requested each week as of 2013. In other words, farmers were already harnessing text messages and mobile technology to help their farms, with the pace of progress likely only increasing their numbers. American taxpayers, meanwhile, receive little to no benefit from producing television infomercials telling foreign audiences how to Google.”