When Bakari Mghandi, 21, from Kale Bondeni, Taita Taveta county ventured into farming, access to land was a challenge.
Mghandi had been introduced to a new project known as Drought Tolerant Crops 4 Youth Jobs Creation.
The initiative is one of the technologies seeking to secure dignified and fulfilling work for 120,000 young people in rural Kenya.
Keen to plunge into farming, Mghandi engaged his family for the parcel of land.
“My son approached his father and me, sat us down and asked to be given a portion of land to farm the seeds he was given from the project,” Bakari’s mother, Rehema Mwaganjoni says.
The 63-year-old saw no need to deny Mghandi access to the land since he was respectful and hard-working.
“I knew that when he would harvest, we would also harvest. His gain is our gain. There is no joy in seeing a child with nothing to do,” she says.
The mother of nine added: “I am very proud of Bakari, he has built his own home. Now he can fend for himself and I can always drop by and ask for some sugar.”
Mghandi is among farmers seeking to make young people have dignified and fulfilling work as seed multipliers, producers, aggregators, agripreneurs and micro, small and medium enterprises.
He was introduced to the project by a friend who informed him that they would be provided with groundnut seeds.
Mghandi planted 15 kilogrammes of groundnuts on a two-acre farm.
He harvested four-90kg bags and sold 136kgs at Sh200 per kilo to an off-taker made available by the project.
“I earned Sh27,200 from the entire sale which I used to begin the construction of my house,” he said.
The project has shown that farming has the potential to enhance livelihood.
Before joining the project, Mghandi was unemployed and would occasionally do manual jobs in one of the tourism hotels.
He challenges young people to embrace farming.
“I own my house, what more can I say?”
The project is undertaken in at least 10 counties: Homa Bay, Siaya, Busia, Elgeyo Marakwet, Makueni, Machakos, Kitui, Meru, Tharaka Nithi and Taita Taveta.
It seeks to turn the tide by involving more young people in agriculture and to scale the commercialisation of Drought Tolerant Crops technologies to secure work for 120,000 youth aged 18-35 years.
By implementing a Trainer of Trainers model, the project cultivates community-based expertise and offers training to the youth in multiple facets of agriculture.
These include good agricultural practices in seed and grain production, enterprise development, mechanisation, value addition and marketing.
This approach enhances productivity and returns per unit of input, making agriculture more attractive to the youth hence promoting sustainability.
The project implemented by Africa Harvest as lead partner, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation targets the involvement of 70 per cent young women and 30 per cent young men.
Recognising that agriculture offers a promising avenue for sustainable employment for the youth, the project concentrates on eight key agricultural value chains.
The value chains include sorghum, finger millet, pearl millet, groundnuts, pigeon peas, green grams, poultry and fish with value addition, mechanisation and digital jobs.
The selected value chains are resilient to climate challenges, reducing weather-related risks that could discourage young farmers.
Benard Kiamba, 34, from Kibwezi West, Makueni county Nguu/ Masumba ward from Hekima Youth Group is also another beneficiary of the new project.
Kiamba's group has 20 members, out of which 16 are women while four are men.
He said they formed the group last year to get the Youth Enterprise Development Fund for farming.
All his group members have joined the DTCs 4 project following training.
“Each member of the group got one kilo of green grams and about half a kilo of pigeon peas,” Kiamba said, adding the harvest was good.
Each harvested between 50 kgs and 90 kgs per value chain.
As part of diversifying their income, the group fitted the thresher provided by the project with a maize sieve to help serve the community by threshing at a fee to generate more income.
They thresh 90kgs of maize for Sh120 and they can thresh up to 150 bags of 90kgs a day.
Kiamba earns Sh30,000 per month from threshing maize, supplementing his income from farming and his bodaboda business.
Members can use the thresher for business purposes but must remit a portion back to the group.
Elizabeth Mbula, 32, from Mavindini Ward in Makueni also joined the project .
She now produces more yields from planting green grams and pigeon peas, farming on land that belongs to her mother.
Mbula, who dropped out of school at Form 2 due to lack of fees, began planting green grams.
Before employing good agricultural practices, her yield was low as she would harvest three bags of 90kgs from three acres.
Mbula’s group, Mutheu Youth Group, comprises 29 women and one man.
It also engages in village savings and loans association activities where they save and borrow soft loans to run their farming enterprises and build on assets.
She said farming has helped educate her three children, two in high school and one in primary.
Today, Mbula runs a butchery as a result of money she got from the DTC 4 Youth Jobs Creation project.
From her butchery, Mbula gets between Sh12,000 and Sh15,000 a day selling goat meat.
She challenged young people to embrace farming despite its challenges.
The Kenya Youth Agribusiness Strategy 2018-2022 by the Agriculture Ministry highlighted some of the challenges hindering the youth from venturing into agriculture.
Some of the challenges are exacerbated by the perception of agriculture as a career of last resort, one of drudgery and low monetary benefits.
Information on access to markets and factors of production including land and financing remain extremely limited hindering adequate engagement of the youth in agriculture.
Access to land is crucial for farming, hence the project targets another 80,000 who are above the age of 35 to act as support pillars to the youth.
This demographic includes parents who have supported the youth by providing access to land for them to cultivate.
Inheritance laws and customs often complicate the transfer of land to young people, highlighting the need for amendment.
Additionally, loans to help youth acquire land are essential. Leasing arrangements, which provide access to land without ownership, provide an effective solution.
The 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census showed that the average farmer in Kenya is 60 years.
The working age (15 to 64 years) accounted for 88.6 per cent of the total active population.
With a total population of 47,564,296, the data reveals that Kenya has a youthful population, with a significant portion under the age of 34.
In rural areas, the population pyramid shows a broad base, indicating many individuals below 15 years of age.
Rural areas continue to house most of the population, with 32.7 million people living in these regions compared to 14.8 million in urban areas.
This rural dominance persists despite ongoing urbanisation trends.
By 2030, Kenya’s population is expected to hit 63.9 million with 22.3 million aged 15-34 years by 2030.
Source: The Star
