Submitted by Mike Grenville on Tue, 29 Jul 2003 11:07

Farmers will no longer need to travel to markets to find out commodity prices which will help minimise the exploitation of farmers by middlemen and commodity speculators.

Developed jointly by Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange (Kace) and Safaricom, subscribers to KenCell Communications will be able to access the service shortly.

Farmers can currently inquire about prices of maize, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages and onions in Eldoret, Nairobi, Kitale, Bungoma and Karatina towns. Kace, an agricultural non-governmental organisation, plans to deliver the prices of 100 commodities.

Future plans include disease outbreak alerts.