FEATURE
Benedetta Nangila has diversified into rabbits to sustain her fodder business during covid.
Kenyan agriculture entrepreneurs bet on diversification, networking to weather COVID-19 shocks, study
T
hroughout 2020 and the myriad of challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting and working with young agribusiness entrepreneurs has been particularly pertinent. To this end, the United States International University-Africa (USIU-A), through support provided by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research through their Cultivate Africa’s Future initiative, has been providing young agripreneurs, aged 18-35 years, with access to business training, finance and mentor support. The program, implemented by the USIU-A’s Global Agribusiness Management and Entrepreneurship (GAME) Center, aims to enable Kenyan youths to develop and maintain resilient, job-creating enterprises.
18 | January - February 2021
At a virtual roundtable event held recently, the results of a recent USIU-A study funded by IDRC to determine the impacts of the pandemic and its gender implications on young entrepreneurs were presented, The event was attended by 14 County Governments, with the keynote address provided by Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o, Governor of the County Government of Kisumu who recounted how the nationwide curfew and cessation of international travel reignited the need to build resilient local food production systems. According to the Kenya Agribusiness Strategy (2017-2021), youth (18-34 years) account for 29% of Kenya’s population and are significant to Kenya’s growth and transformation agenda. However, 70-80% of entrepreneurs fail within their first two years of business. With the disruption of
agricultural value chains since the onset of the pandemic, USIU-A received additional funding from IDRC to better understand the factors that allow young people to be more resilient and to keep their agribusinesses afloat. “This rapid response initiative to document changes in real-time, is part of our efforts at IDRC to help inform recovery of policies and reorganizing of food systems during the current crisis but also to help us prepare for future shocks,” explained Kathryn Toure, IDRC Regional Director, Eastern and Southern Africa to roundtable participants. In total, 874 young men and women active agripreneurs from 31 Counties consented in July 2020 to be involved in the study. With COVID-19
