March 02, 2022

A youth-led revolution of agriculture in western Kenya

Soy and Oil Seeds

Kenya

In Kenya, Youth population account for nearly 75% of the population with unemployment being a massive problem. Despite this situation, agriculture provides an opportunity to address unemployment issues by creating employment opportuniies in varioues nodes of the food chain. In 2018, five youth from Bungoma County, Kenya, decided to form the Bungoma County Youth Visionary Network (BCYVN), a non-profit making organization to create opportunities for youth in agricultural value chains within Bungoma county. The organization takes a vertically integrated approach to agribusiness, offering off taking of farm produce, farm advisory services, input credit services as well as value addition trainings. to select crops advising, informing, educating, and implementing agribusiness related activities and initiatives.

Four years on, the organization’s membership has grown to 721 members (spread across Bungoma County) mostly composed of Youth. For one to qualify as a member, they have to be engaged in activities the agricultural value chain ranging from production, marketing, distribution, or value addition. The primary crop that BCYVN deals with is soybean, whose demand is rapidly increasing in the region due to the number of by-products that can be created from it. Other crops that the organization deals with are onions, tomatoes, passion fruit, and horticultural crops.

Farm Input Provision & Aggregation

As part of the Equatorial Nuts Processors (ENP)-2SCALE partnership, which seeks to increase the nutrition of low income consumers, BCYVN has proven to be a key off-taker of soybean from small holder farmers in the region. The organization is working to encourage soybean production through a variety of innovative solutions across the value chain.

BCYVN has formed a network of nine crop aggregation centers to enable them to offtake soybean and other crops from farmers easily. These centers ease the burden of farmers transporting the produce to far-away markets but also serve as information points where farmers can get agronomic advice. The aggregation centers also serve as agrovets where farmers can easily access inputs. The aggregation centres also help to create jobs for the youth as in each centres at least 3 jobs are created. The soybean that is collected at the centres is either sold to ENP, processors within the Western Kenya region or directly processed at a small scale by BCYVN.

Through the aggregation centers we have managed to create over 20 direct jobs for the youth as each aggregation center has a manager and an assistant. There are also indirect jobs created because there have to be transporters taking produce to the center, offloaders helping etc. At least these developments are helping engage youth productively,

says Hesbon Chesiro, one of the founder members and the organization’s Accountant.

Revenue Streams

A key component of BCYVN’s work is also in facilitating the transfer of knowledge and skills to help young soybean farmers optimize the potential of their agriculture. One of the key things that the company is trying to train farmers on is the development of a savings culture. Savings have the potential to ease some of the challenges that farmers face when it comes to enhancing their agricultural activities.

In May 2021, we received training from 2SCALE on savings and loan which has been beneficial. Since the training, we have started our savings association which has 76 members and so far, we have raised over 150,000 Shillings. We are using this money to invest to enhance the sustainability of business,

says Paul Wabomba, Chair of the BCYVN board.

BCYVN has also established an input credit scheme where member farmers are able to access inputs on credit. This facility is aimed at helping to overcome the challenge of access to credit for farmers so that they can be able to expand their crop production ventures. So far 25 farmers have been able to receive input credit and it is hoped that this number will grow as it is an important tool to help foster farmer loyalty.

Sustainability Plans

As a youth-led organization, one of the key things that BYCVN is trying to achieve is sustainability. This young but focused team has already begun to lay the foundation for a bright future. They have begun to do value addition to some of the soybean they offtake from farmers, enabling them to get higher margins. Some of the products they create are like soya crunches, soya milk, and flour with demand so far growing rapidly. To expand market for their value -added products, BYCVN is also pursuing certification of their value-added products by the government to expand their potential market size in Kenya.

Another way in which the organization is hoping to attain sustainability is by acquiring land to set up a proper processing factory for soybean. Owning land would mean reduced costs of rent that are paid to the premise owners and having a dedicated space for processing would mean they can add value to more soybean generating a steady stream of income for BCYVN.

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