Arthur Keith once said the discovery of Agriculture was the first big step towards a civilized life. And yes indeed, Africa Youth Trust (AYT) has embarked on a journey of sourcing, encouraging and empowering young men and women to spearhead agribusiness that is value added.
`AYT holds strongly that young people should be at the centre of any developments to drive agendas that directly affect them.
Kenya is known to have the largest economy in the east African region with agriculture holding its economy’s backbone and only about one-half of the total agricultural output is non marketed produce. This informs that, if the highest percentage of unemployed Kenyan youths with limited opportunities in the employment sector change the mindset and embrace agri-business then the rest as they say will be history.
The mandate of AYT is to harness the energies of the youth and train them to play major roles in bringing differences in their communities. In this regards, AYT played host to a team of young farmers Kamoskoi Tingtingyon Farming System from Baringo County who are playing key role in fighting challenges that come with change of economic scaling.
Kamoskoi Tingtingyon Farming System is about 7 years old with 15 – 20 members range. These young farmers have pushed ideas from cattle rearing to agri-business and currently working on forming a corporate. Their produce is mainly for consumption and local business. The group is determined to grow into exports and hence often try to source training needs.
Amazingly, these young farmers took a paradigm shift from pastoralists and transformed into agro pastoralists. Interesting, right? Well, they acknowledged that lack of pasture to continuously feed their
animals had become a challenge and an alternative could come in handy.
‘We are known as pastoralist for decades but over time, we realized that we need to change. Lack of pasture for our cows led us to venture into agriculture. Now, we are agro pastoralists,’ explained Vincent, Kamoskoi Tingtingyon Farming System group secretary.
Kamoskoi Tingtingyon Farming System is remarkably influencing its community and thereby attracting AYT to chip-in by brainstorming on how best to hike the skills and add value into the produce for bigger markets. Also present at the consultative forum that took place at AYT offices on 2nd November 2018 in Nairobi was Wilson Kipkazi chairman Endorois Welfare Council whose focus is to push for engagements and support ideas that aim at addressing broader community issues for their better.
It was encouraging to learn that young men and women in Kenya have began to embrace agri-skills and are consulting to how best they can broaden their scope in agriculture. Affirming strategies for productive engagements ahead was the AYT chairman Mr. David Bwakali.
For the upcoming news on AYT’s Agri-skills projects and other informative discussions, we invite you to be on the look by visiting our website often as well as social media pages.
Reach out to us to learn more.