Category Archives: Agripreneur

West Pokot and Turkan counties are among the counties in Kenya which experience extreme weather conditions with sweeping floods during the rainy season and ravaging drought in the dry season.

This has been causing dire food shortages among the communities living in the areas that have been classified as arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL).

It is for this reason that there is a need for interventions with the climate-smart approach in food production to cushion the residents from hunger.

Shirley Kigotho, 29, is one such agro-entrepreneur who has been championing resilient farming methods such as aquaponics and hydroponic among youth and women groups in the areas for food security.

She says she first got the concept of the alternative methods of farming back in 2015 while she was working for the Turkana county government as a financial analyst. 

She then embarked on online research on how developed countries are able to grow crops in arid and semi-arid areas using the aquaponics method which entails growing crops in a moist area by spraying plant roots with plant food nutrients and hydroponics where one uses liquid, sand, gravel, and other materials to grow plants instead of sowing crops in soil.

“After getting better information on the two methods of farming, I needed now to go practical to perfect the techniques,” said Shirley.

Luckily the parents offered her a piece of family land in Trans Nzoia to practice the two concepts. 

“In addition, they gave me a loan of Sh200,000 and added Sh130,000 part of my savings to enable me to set up my prototype farm in Trans Nzoia,” she said.

Since then she has been using the two methods to grow tomatoes within a greenhouse. She also grows capsicum, kales, cabbages, cucumber and coriander among other vegetables outside in the open field. 

She now works with two groups of over 320 youth and women drawn from Trans Nzoia where she was born, West Pokot and Turkana counties training them on how to use the two methods of farming to produce their own food and some for the market.

In this, she installs greenhouses and set up hydroponic systems for people in the areas. 

For instance, together with the youth, they install greenhouses at Sh97,000, hydroponic systems at Sh23,000.

Meaning if one would want to have both the greenhouse and the hydroponic system it would cost them Sh120,000, money that goes directly to the group account.

On her personal account, she has been riding on aquaponics and hydroponic to grow and earn from different crops.

She gets 10 crates of tomatoes which she sells at Sh5,500 per crate.  She is also able to harvest two sacks of 126kgs of cabbages which she sells at Sh3,000 and three 90kgs bags of kales which she sells at Sh3,000 at the local markets.  

To facilitate her agenda of bringing the youth and women together in resilient farming methods, Shirley has started her own company, Jangwani Farms Limited that focuses on growing alternatives in arid and semiarid areas and got incorporated in June 2018.

Currently, her firm has employed three staff members, a farmhand, an agronomist and a technician.

She is also looking for investors to help her expand Jangwani Farms and reach the uncovered areas of the vast West Pokot and Turkana counties to help residents combat the challenge of food insecurity. 

As a boost to her quest, last year Jangwani Farms won the Most Sustainable Business award by Blaze Safaricom encouraging her to start thinking of producing high-value crops for international markets. 

Raised by a single parent, Zachariah Onchuri is one of those few youths who have gone through various challenges in their hustles through the persistence for success has borne them fruits. Zack, as famously known by his friends, was forced out of college in 2009 when he could not pay his school fees given his mother who is his only parent, he could depend on was unable to pay his fees.

His hustle as a ‘mutura’ seller in Eldoret Town near Elgon View College where he was taking his journalism course could also not continue as the town ‘askaris’ were always on his case due to lack of business permit. When it became unbearable, he dropped out of college, left his home in Sotik, Bomet County for Kilifi Town after a friend of his called him over to join him in a security job.

“I had no choice, I found myself being a night watchman in the coastal town, a job which could earn me Sh3,500 a month,” said Zack.

During the day, he could also get involved in hawking fruits such as watermelon, oranges and pineapples at least to increase his earning, foot his bills and support his mother back at home. Fortunately for him, the fruit hawking business picked and he saw no need of continuing as a night security guard. So, he left the watchman job in May 2009 to focus on his new business. “I used to make Sh500 a day from watermelon sales alone as it was loved by most consumers and it would always run out of stock leaving me with nothing to sell even when the demand was still high,” said Zack.

Soon an idea would strike his mind-farming watermelon. However, his first challenge was the lack of a farm though he could afford farm inputs from his little savings. Luckily, a young man from the Chakama location in Kilifi County whom they had become friends offered him a quarter piece of land to grow watermelon. Without any skills in commercial farming and had not thought of consulting, Zack would later in September 2010 leave his business in town to invest about Sh11,000 in watermelon farming.

Unfortunately, he lost almost the entire crop to Bacterial Fruit Blotch and Powdery Mildew, very common watermelon diseases. “At a time I was expecting my first fruits in December that year, I realized the products were still very small and unhealthy while others were withering away. There was no hope on them so I destroyed everything,” he said. Not losing hope, he hustled for a loan of Sh50,000 to begin afresh since his Chakama friend had accepted to let him another half an acre piece of the plot.

Before starting his round two of watermelon farming, he had to consult the county agriculture extension officer and some experienced farmers in the area. In mid-January, he planted the fruits again using the friend’s generator water pump to draw water from Athi River which the farm was closer to water his tender crops through the dry season.

By mid-March 2011, he harvested about six tonnes of watermelon which he would take to markets in Malindi and Kilifi to sell by himself at Sh40 per kilo without passing through middlemen hence making full profit. “At the end of that season I made Sh200,000 gross income remaining with Sh140,000 after expenses and this has since motivated me,” said Zack.

Today the young farmer has over 47 acres of land (his own and others leased) under rotation watermelon farming at Chakama and Garsen in Malindi. He produces 10-17 tonnes of the crop per acre selling on order to wholesalers from Mombasa, Malindi Kilifi and Nairobi at Sh60 per kilo. This earns him between Sh900,000 and Sh1.2m clean net income after farm expenses. He uses this money to settle siblings school fees, some on his mother’s needs while saving the rest.

He has since become a watermelon farming consultant offering the service for free to farmers in various parts of the country and in neighbouring countries such as Tanzania and Uganda. “I believe that sharing information among farmers can not only help in increasing yields and income but also enable starters to choose the right agribusiness to venture in for better returns. This is why I do it for free,” said Zack. He has also ventured into other vegetables such as okra, cabbages, capsicum, and zucchini which helps him in rotation farming he has adopted to keep diseases away and improve the structure of his farms’ soils.

The average cost for starting a beekeeping venture is roughly Sh50,000 that caters for the cost of equipment such as some three modern beehives, a smoking gun, a suit, a honey siever, and a bee brush among others not to talk of the cost of training for basic skills.

These costs can be extremely high for smallholder farmers who may be interested to start the sweet venture despite the fact that 80 per cent of the Kenyan land is arid and semi-arid making it suitable for honey production given the abundance of bees flora in the areas.

However, Nyuki Hubs Kenya Limited, a social enterprise based in Nairobi is now making it simpler for small-scale farmers, more so women groups, in these areas to own their own equipment, get starter bees on loan which is then slowly deducted from the proceeds.

According to Erastus Munywoki, an officer in charge of the company’s Tharaka Nithi Office, farmers willing to work with them are supposed to organise themselves in groups of at least ten before contacting the firm.

“We are currently looking for willing groups of farmers especially women groups that we can help in the production of honey and other bee products to meet our market demand,” said Erastus.

The latest groups of women to benefit from the initiative are some women from Narok and Nyeri counties with others from Tharaka Nithi, Taita Taveta and Makueni counties.

Erastus says the farmers must first ensure a conducive environment for the beneficial insects by planting flowering plants and limiting the use of harmful insecticides that can repulse bees or even kill them.

After contacting the company, they are then visited by a team of technicians who evaluates the viability of the venture in the area and the potential of every farmer.

If all is well, the farmers are offered the equipment in addition to free transport, training and installation services before being left to manage the production.

“Even though the entire management is done by the farmers, we always ensure that we are in close contact with them to offer help in case of any challenges,” said Erastus who is also part of the technical team.

He says, if the farmers were to buy the equipment themselves, they would, for instance, buy a beehive at Sh7,000, suit at Sh4,900, smoking gun at Sh4,000, and bee colonies at Sh3,000 per colony among others, which can be very expensive for them.

Now, bees are easy to rear, 50 colonies require a quarter of an acre and every colony will need its own hive translating to 50 hives within the small piece of land.

Typically, some amount of honey is ready to be harvested from a new hive within four to six months from when the colony of bees was introduced to the hive.

However, it is recommended to wait for one season before you start harvesting that delicious honey to help the bees establish a strong colony which they need the first honey for energy to do that.

This means therefore that Nyuki Hubs farmers, will start selling to the company after a period of one year.

Erastus says that the company buys entire honeycombs from farmers at Sh300 per kilo and offer free transport.

Depending on the size, a beehive can hold 8-10 honeycombs and a honeycomb can hold up to a kilo of honey.

It means that just from one beehive, a farmer can realize over Sh3,000 and if they are 50 hives, the value rise to Sh150,000 per season.

From this amount and depending on the farmers’ agreement with the company, a portion will go directly to the company to service for the equipment loan while the remaining amount to the farmer.

“We do not deduct this amount forever. Once the farmer is through with the loan, he or she will be free to enjoy the whole procedure and at liberty to sell to whatever market they wish,” said Erastus.

According to the National Farmers Information Service (NAFIS), only 20% of the country’s honey production potential (estimated at 100,000 metric tonnes) has been tapped but the consumption keeps growing at a rate of 15 percent annually.

Years have passed since certified tissue culture banana seedlings were introduced into the country and early adopters are already enjoying the fruits of the productive planting materials.

 In 2016, Jane Njuguna, a banana farmer from Nakuru County decided to attend a farmer training event on fruit production and her venture has never remained the same.

She changed from growing suckers from indigenous banana varieties to planting tissue culture seedlings upping her production from 20 to 120 kilos a bunch.

Jane who has about 1.25 acres of the farm under the crop says she got the idea from colleagues about free training on tissue culture banana production at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) and she gladly grabbed the opportunity something which has changed her way of production.

“Three years ago, my farm used to produce very small bunches of bananas that were doing badly in the market. This was stressful because after strenuous work for a long time, I could only realise Sh400 per bunch of a banana,” said Jane.

Generally, tissue-culture bananas produce fruits in 340 days as compared to 420 days for ordinary bananas.

After the training, she decided to uproot all her indigenous banana plants and replaced them with the new varieties having bought some tissue culture seedlings from the training. She also dug a water pan within her farm to enable her to collect run-off water during rainy seasons to water the crop during drought.

“Bananas need regular watering to sustain the large tropical leaves and produce sweet tasty fruit,” said Jane, “I water slowly and deeply every 2 or 3 days during the warmer months as the deficits of water could adversely affect crop growth and yields.”

Experts assert that bananas require an average of 4 to 6 inches of water each month, or about 1 to 1.5 inches per week, depending on the season. However, farmers should take note because overwatering can cause root rot hence they should make sure the soil drains well and does not have standing water.

Currently, the farmer has over 160 plants and she can harvest up to 50 bunches weighing 120-125 kilos a month. These she sells to wholesale markets and grocers in Nakuru Town at Sh20 per kilo translating to Sh120,000-125,000 a month.

“There is a great demand for the product in the market. I cannot remember even a single day I have taken my bananas to the market and come back with them or sold at a throw-away price,” said Jane who also works with the Green Initiative movement in the county to inspire residents to conserve the environment through agricultural proper practices.

She plans to come up with a banana tissue culture lab in the area either individually or in cooperation with other growers to help all farmers access best performing plantlets.

“At the moment I am helping other growers with the best ideas on how to improve their production by planting healthy and high yielding planting materials. In the future, I would like to set tissue culture seedlings lab to enable the growers to find the materials locally without having to travel far away.”

Farmers in Kenya are increasingly becoming smart in identifying innovative ventures to earn a living thanks to the training that enables them to identify new agribusiness opportunities that have high returns with fewer investments.

Among them are potato farmers. While a majority of them are growing the second basic crop for consumers, there are those who have identified a cash cow in seed multiplication for fellow producers.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, to date, the country has a capacity of producing 6,700 metric tonnes of potato seeds to farmers against the demand of 30,000 metric tons annually.

Richard Mbaria, a farmer from Elbagon in Molo Nakuru County is one such farmers who has identified the gap is currently investing in multiplying the planting materials for other farmers.

Richard started agribusiness after five years of growing maize and beans for subsistence purposes. 

However, beginning mid last year, he decided to venture into commercial potato production on a quarter an acre by investing Sh20,000.

After the first season, he harvested 30 bags of 100kg which he sold at Sh2,000 per bag, in the second season he increases the acreage under the crop to 1.5 acres and harvested 100 bags of the same measure which he sold at Sh1,500 each.

Although this encouraged him, he says that there are high price fluctuations as the market is still dictated by brokers and therefore, he has decided to venture into seed multiplication.

“I will now be selling the seeds to farmers directly avoiding middlemen who scoop much of our profit. I will also be cutting the production cost for the farmers who have to travel all the way to Naivasha to buy the seeds,” said Richard.

In this, he invested only Sh1,500 to buy 150 tissue culture seedlings of Sangi variety from Stockman Rozen Ltd, a seed production company in Naivasha at Sh10 each.

By involving Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) for certification purposes to ensure that his area of production is free from pests and diseases, he has planted the seedlings expecting to harvest his first bunch by mid-April.

“I am targeting farmers who want to start planting with the onset of the long rains this month because most of the farmers around are still depending on rainfed agriculture,” he said.

He looks forward to harvesting between 50 and 80 bags of 50kg each of potato seeds.

According to his little market research, KEPHIS certified seeds sell at Sh100 per kilo but he may sell him at Sh80 per kilo which may earn him at least Sh200,000.

Since 2012 KEPHIS has developed 51 varieties of potato seeds to boost production with 33 from Dutch breeding companies, 17 varieties from Kenyan breeders, and one from Scotland with imports of 602,450kg of seed.

Reports by the Alliance for a Green Revolution (AGRA) states that in Africa only 20 per cent of the potato farmers use quality and certified planting materials, which has been dwindling yields.

But for Richard, he is happy that the over 200 farmers whom he works with within the region will have better seedlings by the onset of the season.

He is one of those farmers who have undergone the Farm to Market Alliance training program by Kuza Biashara in collaboration with Cereal Growers Association (CGA) something which has turned him into an Agribusiness Advisor.

“With this new venture we are looking into producing quality and quantity potatoes for bigger companies shortly and be able to avoid brokers completely,” said Richard.

Jael Ochanji is one of the few youths who have made an unpopular decision among the young people- to leave her job and move from the city to a rural home just to grow sweet potato, a step she never regrets.

The 39 years old mother of two was working for milk powerhouse, Brookside Dairy Limited as a sales representative in Nairobi, a job which earned her Sh50,000 a month.

After working for about 10 years, in 2015 she decided to resign and got involved in sweet potato brokerage in Nairobi’s Wakulima Market.

She would work in connection with her mother who arranged for the tubers from their rural home in Kabondo, Homa Bay County and send them to her in the city.

“Sweet potatoes do well in our rural home but farmers just rely on open-air markets in the village which do not have enough buyers.  My work in the city, therefore, involved looking for the market as mum collects the produce from growers and we arrange for transport,” said Jael.

For two years, the young lady was able to connect with many buyers including Uchumi Supermarket where she had won a supply tender.

Unfortunately, when her mother got ill in 2017 and could not do much work, she decided to go back to the village and to get involved in the serious production of both white and the much-cherished orange-fleshed sweet potatoes.

“As much as I had to source the produce from other farmers, producing it myself seemed more reliable and profitable so that I do not disappoint my customers in the city,” she said.

She used some of her savings to lease more farms and today she has 20 acres of family land and 35 other acres that are leased for crop production.

Jael has mastered crop production saying that since the white variety takes three months to mature while the orange-fleshed takes five months, she has to spread her planting schedule to ensure steady harvesting throughout the year.

Before planting the vines, she makes ridges or mounds which helps in conserving soil moisture, reducing soil erosion, making harvesting easier and improving yields.

As most farms in the area are still fertile, she only uses manure to grow the potatoes since most consumers today prefer organically produced foods.

“Kabondo is well known for fertile soil as the area is at the foot of Kisii highlands and besides we receive rainfall almost throughout the year making our products all year round,” said Jael.

Sweet potatoes have a short maturity period of 3-7 months and because of their short duration, it is very strategic for addressing food insecurity.

However, according to Jael, most of the crops consumed locally are imported from either Uganda or Tanzania as local farmers who are majorly smallholders cannot produce enough especially during dry seasons.

“Fortunately, Kenyan consumers love our home-grown yellow and white sweet potatoes for food because they are tasty, rich in nutrients and they do not become soggy when cooked like other varieties,” said Jael.

Today, she transports over 80 80kg sacks of sweet potato every week to Wakulima Market which is her main selling point since Uchumi stopped buying due to its sorry economic state.

She sells a bag at Sh3,500 (minimum price) but during high demand, the price can shoot up to Sh7,000 a bag against Sh1,500 in rural markets since almost every home has some sweet potato farm.

This translates to Sh280,000 during low demand and Sh560,000 in high demand selling in Nairobi.

She spends a total of Sh18,000 in planting, weeding and harvesting. Hiring casual labourers for packing the produce in tracks costs her Sh5,000 while transporting a sack costs her Sh500.

The agro-entrepreneur who has since come up with her company also sells an average of seven bags of sweet potato vines at Sh1,500 each per week to farmers and livestock feed processors from every part of the country.

“I can now cater for my family needs besides running other projects as part of future investments,” said Jael.

She plans to put up a sweet potato processing plant to process different products and enable her and other farmers from the region to access direct market to their produce.

Of course, you must have heard them say that necessity is the mother of invention, meaning, when the need for something becomes essential, you are forced to find ways of getting or achieving it.

This is the situation James Kapombe Kasemo, 28, found himself about six years ago when he was growing tomatoes using coco peat, a soilless growing medium for different horticulture crops.

Since there was no company in Kenya manufacturing the medium, it forced Kapombe under Casemo Foods, a company that he had started in 2014 after graduation for horticulture crops production to import the product from Sri Lanka.

“I was buying the coco peats at Sh800-900 a kilo before factoring in the import fees. Besides I had to wait for a fortnight to receive the goods and this killed our production forcing me to think of an alternative,” said the 2014 Bsc. Actuarial Science graduate from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).

So, after two years in operation, Casemo Foods was closed, and Kapombe researched how coco peats can be manufactured.

His main motivation was the fact that coconut husks, the waste products which are the key raw materials in the production of the medium are always cheaply available in the coastal region including in Mariakani, Kilifi County where he had established his business.

In June 2017, Kapombe upon completing his research decided to rebrand Casemo Foods to Coco Grow and proceeded to invest Sh800,000 to set the new company in Mariakani Town.

Other than being forced to import his first manufacturing machine, the other challenge that faced the firm at its initial stage was unstable electricity supply.

Nevertheless, in 2018 the company managed to secure their production certificate from the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) kicking its production in tonnes per day.

Today, the company which is fast growing has turned to contract local engineers to fabricate its production machines instead of importing.

“We love promoting local skill and other businesses too, that is why instead of spending much in importing the machines, we rather buy them here,” said Kapombe.

The company which has since doubled its production as compared to where they started, packages coco peats in 30-kilogram bags and selling a kilo at Sh33 minus VAT which is way much cheaper as compared to importing the product.

Their main customers come from Kericho, Bungoma, Thika, Nairobi and the Coastal region among other places that buy on order. They have also started exporting the product to other countries especially within the East African region.

“After growing a good customer network in Kenya, we are speedily moving to conquer East Africa before spreading wider to other parts of the continent shortly.

The company set in the local coastal town is now providing jobs for many people, especially the youth who always find themselves jobless and move to bigger towns and cities in such formal jobs.

“We started with just two permanent employees and six casual labourers whom we hired from time to time. Today, our workforce has really increased following the improvement in terms of business,” said Kapombe who is now the CEO of CocoGrow besides being the founder.

So far CocoGrow has been featured among the 15 Most Promising Startups at a past Nairobi Innovation Week event and Unleash Innovation Lab, Denmark among other competitions.

Kapombe is now looking into starting a mattress plant using the same coconut by-products, after leading the firm to be the best producer of coco peats in Africa to improve sustainable production in food systems.