Governors told to offer incentives to get youths into farming

Kenyan youths can embrace farming as a source of generating income if proper measures are put in place by county governments, stakeholders attending a forum in Mombasa were told on Tuesday.

The forum, made of governors, county agriculture executives, financiers and players from the private sector, were in consensus that technological support, affordable credit, participation in value addition, incentives and training are some of the ways that can be used to get youths into farming.

Limited land, difficulties in accessing financial services, low productivity, inadequate skills and negative perception about agriculture besides lack of support for innovation and research were some of the issues locking out youths from farming, the forum heard.

“The youth do not want to waste time looking for money and as such if its farming they want to do, they prefer to get ready information on how and where they can go about it,” said Bernadette Murgor, a Publisher of Smart Farm Africa magazine which compiles and provides such information to youth.

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) head of strategic planning and coordination unit Sheila Koskei said that youths can be involved in agriculture through service provision and technology.

Uasin Gishu Governor Jackson Mandago said that he is engaging established farmers in his county in an initiative dubbed Kijana na acre to offer support to young farmers through leasing of parts of their farms on short-term basis.

His Tharaka-Nithi counterpart Samuel Ragwa asked counties based in the rural areas to offer free internet connectivity to aid in farm research, market availability and exchange of information to prevent youths from relocating to urban centres in search of employment.

On his part, West Pokot Governor Simon Kachapin said that farmers who have failed to yield profits from their farms owing to brokers have made farming unattractive to young people, a challenge which can be solved through training youths on value and costs of farm produce and how they can prevent theft of their benefits.

Vision 2030 Youth Entrepreneurs Associate Chief Executive Officer Edward Githaiga said through an initiative called Public Private Youth Partnerships (PPYP), they aim at attracting and retaining youths into agribusiness through soya and sunflower seed farming.

Agricultural Finance Corporation(AFC) Managing director Lucas Meso said most times, requests for loans to fund farming by youth groups are rejected owing to lack of verifications or convincing reasons how they intend to do farming.