The DrumNet network allows farmers to aggregate their produce, giving them direct access to wholesale buyers and circumventing small-scale brokers and other intermediaries that extract excessive value from each transaction. DrumNet Agents are recruited and located in existing market centers that will actively compare buying prices and negotiate with wholesale buyers - exporters, processors, large retailers, and large institutions.

DrumNet participants include individual farmers (primarily through their local cooperative societies), along with agricultural input suppliers, wholesale buyers, transporters, and agricultural extension/training organisations. In linking these various network participants, DrumNet is not directly involved in commodity transactions nor provides direct financial services. Rather, it acts as a broker, taking care of many interactions between the farmers and corporate buyers, and building trust and confidence between the parties.

To facilitate information dissemination, DrumNet has set up support centres - simple, stand-alone facilities catering to clients who require financial, market, and technical information in order to make more profitable transactions. According to the organisers, each support centre is equipped with a computer with a dial-up connection to the internet and a mobile phone (GSM) to link up with the central hub in Nairobi, which acts as the main server/database and provides an access centre for the storage and retrieval of information. Each support centre is managed by an Agent, usually a member of the local community, who collects and disseminates information, assists in forming farmer groups, and arranges buy and sell deals. The centres have been designed to keep start-up and operating costs low and allow the agents to reach rural areas typically untouched by such services. In addition, by working collaboratively with organisations that provide up-to-date information on comparative market prices throughout the region, DrumNet offers information on leading production methods for the more profitable crops. It works with farmers through established learning organisations such as self-help groups, cooperatives, and Farmers Field Schools to maximise the peer-to-peer dissemination of this information.

The financial component of the project, known as Kilimo Kipya ("New Agriculture" in Kiswahili), is a smallholder farmers' financial service developed in association with commercial financial institutions and agricultural stockists. In the short term, Kilimo Kipya focuses on savings and credits, which will form the foundation of a more comprehensive Farmers' Database, Farmers Identification System, and Farmers' Referencing System that ultimately, will link farmers to the national financial grid for commercial and sustainable funding of farm activities.

Agriculture, Information Technology

Farmers are often unable to take advantage of financial services available to them because they lack key information, such as on the most profitable crops to grow, or are unable to access the right market at the right time. These farmers are often forced into unprofitable transactions with local brokers and traders who take advantage of their lack of market information.

In the future, the DrumNet team envisages that its info-kiosks will be embedded into existing banks, savings and credit societies, and agricultural associations, and possibly even operated as independent franchises.