Year: January 2019 – January 2022
Country/Area: Kenya
Client: International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC)
Description:
The project was a sub-grant from the 2SCALE Program Consortium led by IFDC and co-funded by the private sector and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Directorate-General for International Cooperation (“DGIS”). Building on a first phase (2012-18), the current phase of 2SCALE Program runs from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2023.
2SCALE incubated and accelerated inclusive businesses through partnerships (“Partnerships”) with companies (African/ Dutch small- and medium-sized enterprises – SMEs) and producer organizations (POs) that wanted to build commercially viable strategies in African food industries through sustainable sourcing, based on mutually beneficial relations with smallholder farmers and other local micro-, small- and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs); and/ or by serving local and regional Base-of-the-Pyramid (BoP) markets with nutritious food products.
Specifically, 2SCALE supported partnerships with significant potential to improve the terms of inclusion of smallholder farmers and other MSMEs in target food value chains, to attract and employ the youth, to engage and empower women, and to improve food and nutrition security, both at grassroots level and at the consumer end of the value chain. Local networks, also called agribusiness clusters (“ABCs”), are instrumental to the 2SCALE program to ensure better access to services and strengthen innovative and bargaining capacities of smallholder farmers.
More specifically, the sub-grant to KT aimed to support the development of activities under the partnership agreement with Batian Nuts Limited, whose objective is to develop affordable, aflatoxin-free fortified groundnuts products (energy- dense, micronutrient enhanced pastes) for BoP consumers in the semi-arid counties of Meru and Tharaka Nithi in Kenya.
Achievements
- Twenty-Two (22) one-on-one meetings organized at the inception of this project for buy-ins with actors in groundnut value chain sector including producer organizations, financial institutions, relevant government institutions and other service provider institutions like agro-inputs shops and technology providers.
- Seventy-nine (79) institutions (68 FBOs, 1 Mechanization provider, 4 Financial Institution and 3 aggregators, 3 Farm input Suppliers) recruited to the project.
- 3,175 SHFs are participating in the project where 61% of the beneficiaries are women and 25% youth.
- 272 value chain actors trained on FBO and project governance.
- 2,937 farmers trained on good agronomic practices, CSA, and PHH (with emphasis on aflatoxin management).
- Four (4) major financial institutions engaged and are training farmers on financial management as well as offering financial services. They include, Trans-National SACCO, Equity Bank (Foundation), Times-U SACCO and Juhudi Kilimo.
- 270 SHFs and other VC actors have been reached by financial institutions.
- 26.7MT of improved groundnut seeds (Mwangaza and Ndovu varieties) produced and accessed by farmers in the project area.
- 145.5 acres of land put to seed multiplication in partnership with Egerton University.
- 2 learning visits implemented successfully and attended by both producers and other actors.
- 109 youth supported to initiate service provision services (Mechanization, Spraying, aggregation, provision of extension services) to smallholder farmers in their communities.
- 23 Village Savings and Lending Associations (VSLAs) started and are actively operational.
- 3 knowledge materials developed.
