Youth Agripreneur Program launched in Kajiado county, Kenya

The Ministry of Agriculture, County Government of Kajiado as part of the World Bank’s Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project  (KCSAP) and One Million Farmer Platform (OMFP) partnered with Kuza Biashara for its Disruptive Agricultural Technologies (DAT) initiative to benefit the young women/men from the Kajiado county.

Working closely with the county teams, Kuza would be supporting the selected Youth Agripreneurs from 2 wards (Rombo & Entonet) through its Rural Entrepreneur Development Incubators (REDI). With the specially designed Kuza portable digital toolkits each of the Youth Agripreneurs would be able to provide digital extension services to a cohort of 200 smallholder farmers from the banana, dairy, poultry and beans value chains.

The Youth Agripreneur program got kicked off officially on 23 & 24 Aug 2022 in Kitengela town, Kajiado. Kuza Mentors, Mr. Kelfin Mwambia conducted the Agripreneur orientation session in the presence of Madam Florence M.Kasimu, Digital Champion, KCSAP and the Ward Agricultural Officers supporting  the dairy and tomato  value chains. Madam Florence  highlighted how farmers can address their challenges using the disruptive agriculture technologies and  increase their productivity.

Kuza mentors would support the selected Youth Agripreneurs through a 15 week MBA style leadership program to equip them with technical and business skills needed, and hand hold them in providing digital extension services to their respective cohorts of smallholder farmers from the Vulnerable & Marginalized Groups (VMG) or Common Interest Groups (CIG).

Youth Agripreneurs would sustain with the commissions they earn by providing agri inputs, farm services and facilitation of credit and markets to their farmers.