Sowing the seeds of success

01 November 2012

Farm Africa's training of young Kenyans in the skills they will need to grow food effectively throughout their lives isn't restricted simply to schools.

We are making just as great an impact with young Kenyans who have left school - teaching them how to transform small plots of land into viable food businesses that will sustain them well into the future.

We aim to develop at least one successful business for each youth group that we work with. We are pleased to see that each group is making great progress towards getting their agricultural enterprises up and running.

Farm Africa has provided an acre of land to each of three groups that are learning to grow and market vegetables. This extra land is being used to experiment with different seed varieties to see what grows best.

Young Kenyans turn cabbages into businesses

The young Kenyans are also learning effective techniques that will help ensure bigger and healthier harvests. These include seasonal planting, use of fertilisers, and spacing and weeding. The youth groups can, once they have begun to harvest their crops, also use the extra land to rotate crops, keeping their soil healthy and fertile.

Of equal importance to learning the basics of successful planting and harvesting, the youth groups are also learning how to manage and adapt when adversity strikes. The Baraka Youth Group, for example, recently set up a nursery to grow new crops to replace their crops destroyed by flash flooding. Similar steps have also been taken by The Glory Youth Group who set up a nursery to grow new peppers after the crop was blighted by plant disease.

Read more about our work with young farmers.

Learn more about our work in Kenya.

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