KENYA – Farmers on Fire has partnered with Founders Connect to provide training and skills development to young farmers in the country with different farming techniques and encourage the younger generation to invest in agriculture.
The training program, which extends to the African continent at large, will provide youth with training on sustainable farming techniques, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and marketing. The program will cover various areas such as vegetable farming, mushroom production, chicken farming, and goat farming.
This is with the ambition of addressing the ongoing challenge of food insecurity while making agricultural ventures profitable for young people.
Farmer on Fire will focus on training in farming, while Founders Connect Africa will focus on training in business.
“Smallholder farming is by far the most common occupation among families.” “In sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, 80 percent of the food supply comes from small family farms. However, most of these farms are only producing a fraction of their potential,” said Wangari Kuria, CEO of Farmer on Fire.
“Improving the productivity and success of smallholder farmers is imperative as we strive to eradicate extreme poverty. “Even small increases in productivity would greatly enhance local food security.”
On his part, Kang’ethe Njoroge, CEO of Founders Connect Africa, says that food insecurity continues to be a significant challenge for numerous households in Africa. Furthermore, this issue is particularly prevalent among young people.
Earlier this year, Farmer on Fire Limited, an agricultural capacity-building firm, launched a training program for Agritech entrepreneurs on persuasive grant-writing proposals. The aim of the program is to increase investments in the sector.
According to the firm’s CEO, the agriculture sector in Africa is currently attracting a significant amount of funding. However, there is a lack of scalable ideas being funded, largely due to the inability to persuade investors.
She explained that after Fintech, Agritech is the next industry to receive significant funding, with billions of grant money available for individuals in Africa who have scalable ideas to solve problems.
“We are planning to train over 1000 entrepreneurs in Africa for a subsidized fee of Sh2500,” she said in a media statement.
The online training will equip agritech entrepreneurs with skills to improve the quality of grant applications and budget writing, increasing their chances of winning grants.
Others include aligning expenditures with grant amounts and utilizing effective narration to create grant applications that resonate with the funder, among other skills.
The program beneficiaries, with the first cohort taking place on July 24, also received training on how understanding the funder can help entrepreneurs align their goals with the funder’s objectives.
