Posted on May, 11, 2025 at 03:37 am
An agri-based organization has ventured into training extension service providers with the aim of expanding agriculture and livestock production in addition to job creation.
Kilimo Trust Chief Executive Officer Dr. Birungi Korutaro said the organization was equipping village-based agents based in the communities with the knowledge and skills required to provide extension services for particular crops and livestock.
Extension services, also known as rural advisory services, are programmes designed to provide farmers and other rural actors with the information, guidance, and services they need to improve their livelihoods, skills, and practices.
Dr. Korutaro said the services played a crucial role in agricultural development, focusing on food security, productivity, and sustainable farming practices.
“We have been able to equip them with technologies to support the dissemination of information that is needed by the smallholder farmers to increase production, reduce post-harvest handling losses, and access markets,” she stated.
Speaking in Nairobi during the commemoration of 20 years of Kilimo Trust’s existence in promoting market access, creating jobs, and fostering climate-resilient agriculture within East Africa, Dr. Korutaro said they have developed curriculums and 14 value chains to support the agribusiness component.
“As Kilimo Trust, we have been able to work with polytechnics as well as technical and vocational training centers (TVETs). We found that the polytechnics and the TVETS are playing a pivotal role in creating jobs when they skill the rural youth through their rural or regional centers,” she added.
However, Dr. Korutaro noted that if the agriculture sector was well-developed, it could accommodate the increasing number of young people graduating from colleges and universities and looking for jobs.
“Value addition of agricultural produce is a mining area for young people as it does not require exhaustive activities. Therefore, the same can attract youth and therefore help in taming the increasing level of unemployment in the region,” she added.
Dr. Korutaro confirmed that owing to economic stresses, job opportunities are declining and youth are the most affected but pointed out that agriculture still has strong growth fundamentals, which, if well exploited, could provide employment to the majority of the youth.
“Regional Governments should develop receptive strategies to enhance efficiency along the agricultural value chain and hence achieve high food production to feed the increasing population,” she said.
Dr. Korutaro further noted that the region is experiencing rapid urbanization and high population, a trend causing high demand for food production.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development indicates that the average age of a Kenyan farmer stands at 60 years, with the majority of young people still not interested in farming, citing a lack of proper structure and minimal returns.
Kilimo Trust is currently working with 180 companies that are providing the opportunities for the youth, enabling them to get experiential learning, and the CEO said that the trainees have an option of accepting to be retained in those companies, getting hired by other companies, or starting their own businesses.
Dr. Korutaro further said they were ready to partner with the Kenyan government on a number of areas, including collaboration on youth training.
“We want to see how we can support the government and private sector to ensure that we contribute to job creation. We are looking for those collaborations. We are looking at youth job creation and whether that model could work,” Dr. Korutaro added.
Country Team Leader Kilimo Trust Kenya Anthony Mugambi challenged the youth to develop interest in agribusiness, saying the sector plays a vital role in the economic prowess of the many countries across the world.
“The current challenges facing the agriculture sector require countries in the region to conceive homegrown solutions, especially to help in taming the increasing vagaries of climate change,” he said.
There is a need to guarantee sustainable and resilient agriculture amidst the increasing global warming shocks, and this therefore requires domestic solutions that would make farmers buoyant in terms of achieving significant food production.
Mugambi called upon the government and other stakeholders to pursue programmes to attract youth to agriculture in order to tap their expertise in modern technology spaces.
In the Economic Survey 2025 released recently by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), total employment, excluding rural small-scale agriculture and pastoral activities, stood at 20.8 million persons in 2024, up from 20.0 million persons recorded in 2023.
Data from the World Bank indicates that by 2050, Kenya’s urban population is projected to reach nearly as large as the country’s entire population today, with more than half of the people living in cities. Specifically, the World Bank estimates that the urban population will increase to 40 million by 2050, compared to slightly over 18 million currently.
The urbanization rate is high, at 4.3 percent per annum, leading to rapid population growth in urban areas.
Dr. Korutaro advised that part of the key strategies stakeholders need to devise is retooling extension services to increase more information to the farmers.
Kilimo Trust is a non-profit organization working on agriculture for development across the East African Community countries, namely Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The organization, in collaboration with partners, deals with inclusive and sustainable market-led agricultural value chain development in the region.
Established in 2005, Kilimo Trust has been able to impact several smallholder farmers, over 500,000 directly and 1.2 million indirectly, and other value chain actors in the agribusiness sector through its interventions across the East African region.
Source: KNA