Young farmer cultivates change through regenerative agriculture

In Kenya, young people make up 84% of the country’s unemployed population and many lack viable opportunities for work, but 25-year-old Evyline has found a rewarding opportunity in farming.

Evyline lives in Tharaka Nithi, a rural, semi-arid region of Kenya that is routinely impacted by climate extremes, but thanks to the power of regenerative agriculture and with support from Farm Africa, she has helped to transform farming practices and resilience to climate change in her community.

Having pursued a diploma in agriculture, Evyline saw the opportunities the sector has to offer, and wasted no time channelling her expertise into her work with Farm Africa’s Regenerative agriculture project.

Evyline hopes to harness the potential of Kenya’s young unemployed population, “We encourage many young people to join agriculture as a business.”

Limited access to key resources such as high-quality inputs and finance and markets create obstacles to entering the agricultural sector in Kenya and, as Evyline observes, a lack of knowledge holds young people back from viewing farming as a potential business opportunity. Instead, they view farming simply as a way to grow food for their own consumption: “Most of our young people take farming as an obvious or a normal thing.”

But since taking part in Farm Africa’s Regenerative agriculture project, young people are not only growing food for their own dietary needs, they are increasing their incomes too thanks to training in good agricultural practices and access to better links to markets.

“Most of the young people have learnt that we are doing farming as a business, not just to have the food, or cater for your stomach,” Evyline said.

Working as a village-based advisor (VBA) in collaboration with Farm Africa, Evyline uses the training she has received from Farm Africa to train over 200 other farmers in regenerative agriculture techniques, with a view to seeing a boost in their yields, productivity, food security and resilience to the changing climate.

Photo: Farm Africa / Arete

“I’m glad to be a VBA. I work as a VBA with all my passion, with all my knowledge, with all my strength. Being a VBA, having a diploma in agriculture, I would like to have a very bright future whereby I can help my farmers and encourage them or teach them about new modern technologies of farming.”

“Regenerative agriculture has changed the lives of so many farmers whereby they are not incurring a lot of costs as they used to or suffering losses. I think with Farm Africa, we can do more.”

Photo: Farm Africa / Arete

Through the project, Farm Africa is promoting regenerative agriculture techniques that minimise the reliance on expensive chemical inputs by using practices like mulching, minimum tillage, micro-dosing of fertilisers and intercropping.

Aside from reducing farmers’ financial costs, these techniques also lead to fewer crop losses as mulching helps to retain moisture in the soil and intercropping can improve soil health, helping to create higher yields even when unpredictable weather occurs.

Evyline is one of 250 village-based advisors working with Farm Africa to help transform agriculture in Kenya. To discover more about the project, which is funded by the IKEA Foundation through AGRA, visit our Regenerative agriculture page here.