Transcript

Episode 1: How to integrate young people into agriculture in Kenya with Jeremiah Rogito

[00:00:00]

Intro

[00:00:00] Jeremiah: So over time I developed a lot of interest because I realized integrating young people can be a great is a game-changer in the food industry, in this country because ultimately people must eat at all times, so it's important to focus on agri in a big sense

[00:00:17] Margaret: hi everyone and welcome to shift agri hub podcast. The show that not only inspires and motivates you to start an agribusiness venture, but also shares simple, actionable tips and strategies that will help you grow your business into a profitable venture.

[00:00:34] I'm your host, Margaret Mbesa and welcome to today's episode.

Guest Introduction

[00:00:41] Margaret: Our guest today in this episode is Jeremiah Rogito, he is an agribusiness specialist, uh, in the area of youth and social inclusion. He's a project advisor at SNV Kenya on the Veggies 4 Planet and People Project. Here he works with the youth and the women, smallholder farmers in Kenya. He's also the director of partnerships innovation and strategy at Equatorial Hortifresh limited also based in Eldoret Kenya. Where his role is to provide strategic support on how to integrate small holder farmers and large scale farmers into the company's supply chain. But above all, he's a youth himself and very passionate about youth participation in agribusiness.

[00:01:31] Welcome to the program.

[00:01:32] Jeremiah: Thank you so much

Jeremiah’s childhood experiences motivated him to pursue a career in agriculture

[00:01:34] Margaret: So what really drives you? It's really impressive. The things we've been able to do in the short period of time, when you got involved in the agribusiness sector.

[00:01:43] Jeremiah: I think I derive my passion from where I grew up. I grew up in rural Western and, uh, in a rich agriculture background so seeing farmers struggle at a very young age it really drove me to study more into agri and we get to discuss this a bit, a little bit longer in there in the course of this interview. So in the course of that really moved me to study, to agri more and to see how we can be able to transform the lives of farmers and not just older farmers, but young farmer specifically.

[00:02:10] Every, every young person has different ambitions. I think in my own personal life, it kept on changing. In the recent past, I think from high school and beyond, I had developed a lot of interest in agri and I knew this was the space that, I was going to get into. I studied my BS in agriculture, in Egerton and something shocking, actually, you know, in Kenya you have a choice where you choose three degrees programs from different universities and then you have two, three other choices I actually chose Egerton everything from top to bottom. So I was really determined to get you into the space of agri Egerton to be specific, at Egerton.

[00:02:42] Margaret: Wow, kudos, to the, university.

[00:02:44] You are recognized as a fellow with the African youth change makers. Tell us a little bit, what was that? What, what it's all about?

[00:02:52] Jeremiah: Yeah. Africa Change Maker fellow is, uh, is headquartered in Abuja, Nigeria, and it recognizes, young people who've made a tremendous contribution in the various sectors. So I was recognized that year for my immense contribution specifically on issues of youth and agribusiness in this country, having worked a lot around issues of technology and integrating farmers specifically young farmers in very complex value chains. I think we'll get into that discussion some bit later in this conversation.

[00:03:18] Margaret: So when was this, When are you recognized?

[00:03:21] Jeremiah: That must be 2018. .

[00:03:22] Margaret: Congratulations.

[00:03:23] Jeremiah: Thank you.

[00:03:23] Margaret: That's quite impressive.

[00:03:25] You are an agribusiness youth and social inclusion specialist. What does that mean?

[00:03:32] Jeremiah: Yeah as the name It's agribusiness it's mainly the agriculture space and looking not just about production, but the business aspects. So agribusiness. Going over beyond that, I'm extremely passionate about issues of youth affairs. And I think I derive this interest in high school I had the opportunity to be an organizing secretary for young farmers and we did a lot of things in young farmers then and I remember to some extent we were even supplying the school with vegetables and made some bit of money from it. When we left, a lot of my friends went back home and really wanted to venture into agri. But when they try to get access to land from their parents, they were unable to access it because some parents thought that they were wishing them to die because that's how land is passed over to the next generation. So over time I developed a lot of interest because I realized integrating young people can be a great is a game changer in the food industry, in this country because ultimately people must eat at all times, so it's important to focus on agri in a big sense.

The importance of technical production and business skills as a farmer

[00:04:24] Margaret: Where is the place of education in agriculture specifically technical production skills and also the business part of it?

[00:04:32] Jeremiah: Yeah, absolutely. You know, for a long time. And we say a lot of majority of Kenyan people, I think up to 80% consider themselves to be farmers but yet you see that agriculture productivity in Kenya is not increasing or whether you're not seeing them really making a lot of money from this particular venture. I think that really ties in very well to the question that you're asking the place of the technical knowledge and the place of business skills. And these are things that I'm very passionate about myself, because you realize even for you to be able to make out the best from agri, you need to have the best technical production skills, but you, even if you have the best Sukuma Wiki (Kales) or the best manangu (African nightshade) that you are producing, if you are not selling and making money anyway, you, you are doing nothing at the end of it all. So the place of business skills all becomes very important for you to not just produce the best flourishing crops, but also you have the best interest of mind, and also calculate your profits and see that you are making your margin well.

Ethics in agribusiness - Run your farm business in an honest manner. This guarantees customer retention and sustainability ensuring you remain in business for a long time.

[00:05:23] Jeremiah: But also in the recent past, I think I've developed an interest in a subject that is called farm ethics. The essence of business is to maximize profit while minimizing your costs, but we see increasingly some farmers in the quest of doing that they forego their business ethics, and this affects the sustainability of that particular program. So I'm actually taking a course right now that is focusing on issues of strategic business leadership and looking specifically in terms of how we integrate ethics in issues of agri.

[00:05:49] For instance, you're a farmer, you are keeping cattle and you are producing milk, and for every one litre of milk you sell and you realize that if you add some more water, you can have more milk. So you begin for every one liter, you are adding half a litre of water and you see, it's still selling people don't realize that it's adulterated. In the quest of increasing that you realize that you are making profits yes, because the milk is still selling and you have still people are buying it. But over time when they come to realize that this milk is not the original taste, you lose all the customers and eventually the business collapses. So for you to be able to integrate issues of ethics, ensuring that you do the best you do it right will ensure that you have return customers and are able to ran with it for a longer period of time.

[00:06:31] Margaret: You know what you say reminds me of what young people are taught in school like in primary school, if you take shortcuts, they'll cut you short.

[00:06:37] Jeremiah: Absolutely.

It is risky to venture into agriculture without any knowledge in the agricultural activity that you wish to pursue. Jeremiah offers advice on how to go about this predicament.

[00:06:37] Margaret: So back to education, so what would you advise anyone who wants to venture into agribusiness, but they don't have an education background in agriculture, any tips that you can share?

[00:06:47] Jeremiah: I think it, it cuts across all businesses. For any business person, you cannot venture into a business that you have absolutely no idea about. It's important for you to have an idea of what you really want to venture into. And so getting specifically into agri if you absolutely not knowledge, at least there are a lot of resources online, not just that, but you have a lot of people who have studied this particular trade, who can be able to walk with you that particular journey but venturing into it with absolutely no knowledge is going to be very tricky, not just for agri, but any, any space, that you're talking about, any business.

[00:07:16] Margaret: Thank you for that.

Jeremiah shares why young people are not fully participating in agriculture. He discusses the findings of his research work on youth and agribusiness. He also reflects on the extensive work that he has done in integrating the youth into various agricultural value chains.

[00:07:18] Margaret: So now let's look at why young people are not exploiting the many, many opportunities in agriculture. So what is your take on this? Why are the young people not actively involved in this sector?

[00:07:33] Jeremiah: I mean, there are a lot of papers that have been written on this subject, myself also I have written a lot in this context, including my own master's dissertation. And, you know, there are two ways of looking at it. You can either say that the youth are not interested, its the youth themselves factors, intrinsic factors or extrinsic factors, and I may mean the given opportunity I can talk about this until up to tomorrow, the next year, to 2030. So in summary, I think I'll focus in what most of my writings I've looked at.

[00:07:57] Margaret: Yeah.

[00:07:57] Jeremiah: And I'm looking at four key issues. One of them, either the youth, themselves, their interest in agri, and of course you're seeing increasingly we have many people interested in agri. The other three issues are extrinsic. We looking at issues of land, how do they access productive resources? Because ultimately for you to produce, you need some space for you to produce. We have issues of access to finance, that is a big challenge for, for many young people. and most of these things, you realize that they are interconnected. The fact that you do not have land, when you go seeking finance, you ask any collateral, do you own land? So it's very difficult for you to access financing. And the last one is information, and I think we'll get to discuss this a bit later or so in the course of our conversation today.

[00:08:36] You know when I wrote my dissertation paper, it really exposed me a lot. I looked at many issues and specifically young people. I looked at Ethiopia. I looked at our neighbors. You look at that paper I have contributed a lot, looking at both in the Southern part of Africa, looking at Western Africa, North Africa, and across various continents also, and comparing how the youth in those particular countries interfaced with agriculture and specifically for our country.

[00:08:59] And you realize in our country, there's an increase in people, participate, young people, participating in social vices and specifically gambling because the beauty of gambling, if you are gambling, a football match within 90 minutes, you already have your money. I mean, there is nothing in agriculture that you can do that you can get money within 90 minutes, unless you're doing marketing. But if it's an actual production where the majority of the money is, then it takes quite some bit of time. So it really needs to make economic sense to them, not just in terms of economic sense, but in terms of time as well, how long does it take for them to be able to realize those returns

[00:09:30] So talking about specifically the areas of intervention I know we'll discuss it a bit later also. Some of the programs that we're seeing, if they notice there's money in it, they'll get into it, but if they are convinced that it's just a waste of time, they will better engage in other trades.

[00:09:42] I've worked quite a bit in the Western part. I grew up there, So I spent most of my education part and most of my work has been really around North Rift South Rift and Western Kenya. And you realize this like more or less the food basket of this country, you know, it said that if, you look at the general landscape, for instance, in Eastern Africa, Uganda and Tanzania have a productive land over 88% and , 95%. So they are very large productive land. When you look at Kenya, we are playing at around 25 to 27% and most of this land is really shrinking.

[00:10:12] So a majority of this productive land, when you look at Kenya is at the regions where I have been working in that is North Rift, South Rift and Western Kenya, and of course, a bit of Central. Also this particular region is where we have a majority of young people, we have, uh, many of them in that particular area.

[00:10:26] Margaret: What are some of the agricultural projects that you have been involved in?

[00:10:32] Jeremiah: Yeah, I've been involved in quite a number of them. Most of them short-term and others long-term. I think for the context of the discussion, I'm going to focus on the long term projects. I was heavily engaged in the sweet potato value chain project funded by GIZ implemented then by Welthungerhilfe together with local partners. Then I also spend quite some bit of time also for, USAID project funded by USAID itself and implemented by RTI called the Western Kenya Passion Food Competitiveness Project. I spent some bit of time also on the Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project and specifically the Irish potato focus in Uasin Gishu and, and Elgeyo Marakwet. And now spending quite some bit of, uh, over a year now on the veggies for planet and people which is a project funded by IKEA foundation implemented by SNV Netherlands development organization and World vegetable center in Kenya and Ethiopia.

[00:11:23] Margaret: You're you have such rich experience in various, eh, I would call them value chain, agricultural crops that such as sweet potatoes, passion, Irish potatoes, and the vegetables and these are really good horticultural products that I believe would be quite attractive for the youth. Isn't it? Do you agree?

[00:11:42] Jeremiah: I agree with you entirely, but of course, when we do programming and I think it's an area I've developed a little bit interest in the past, it's actually speaking at a conference a couple of weeks back, and I was saying some of these, uh, crops require you to, when you're designing an intervention, really have a clear focus on them. You see for a crop like sweet potato and vegetables anyone can practice it because of its low low you can join it so easily the barriers for entry are very minimalized. When you look at crops like passion, fruit. It's a, it's a heavy investment crop. So, and specifically we are targeting young people to be able to integrate them in such complex value chains, then you need to critically think about it in terms of how you're going to make sure that they get in so easily.

[00:12:24] Margaret: Yeah, true. And you know, sweet potatoes and vegetables, uh, are on demand even at the local level, from the neighbors and from the local community.

[00:12:34] Jeremiah: Absolutely. And there's an increasing demand for many consumers, even beginning from my own self. The amount of vegetables I consume now is more than what I used to consume in the past. And increasingly I think consumers are being much more aware of what they consume. So they tending to move towards consumption of vegetables and more of traditional foods. So we are seeing the increase the consumer trends in that particular line. Yeah.

[00:12:59] Margaret: Speaking of vegetables, the current project is very interesting. This is the one that is being implemented by SNV that is the Netherlands development organization. I was surprised to learn that, uh, there is a term known as a vegetable gap and that in the Sub Sahara Region we are one of the lowest uh, consumers of vegetables in the world.

[00:13:23] Jeremiah: Absolutely, as you are shocked, I was also shocked too, when I was reading about this, because I mean, where I grew up in Western Kenya, you see people eating vegetables almost every single day, day everyday people are eating sukuma wiki (kales) everyday people are eating manangu spider plant or such like things so when you get to learn that in Sub Saharan Africa, where we actually sit that it has the lowest consumption, it's really mind boggling.

[00:13:44] Margaret: It is, it's a serious problem because from a nutritional perspective, vegetables have high contents of vitamins minerals, you know, to address and to supply a lot of, eh, micronutrients deficiency in our diets. And anyway, when you look at the, uh, a common, you know, feature in most African homes, we don't really eat vegetables every day. After reading this, I actually observed that. So tell us more about this project. Where is it being implemented in Kenya?

[00:14:16] Jeremiah: Yeah, veggies for planet and people is a project implemented in Kenya and Ethiopia, as I mentioned, funded by the IKEA foundation. And in Ethiopia, we are looking at the for this countries, both countries you're looking at the major cities are the consumers of these vegetables. So in Ethiopia, we are focusing on Addis Ababa as a region in Kenya at the moment, we are focusing on two major cities that is in Nairobi city and the Kisumu city. So around Nairobi city, we are looking at three counties where we started the implementation that is Kiambu, Muranga and Machakos. For, Kisumu county, or we're looking at Kisumu itself, Kakamega and Vihinga initially. Of course, there are ambitions to be able to expand the scope of this program because we seeing increasingly demand for this product is, is, is, is rising. So we have  interest of focusing on towns like Mombasa, large cities like Mombasa, Nakuru and also Eldoret and looking at environs around those areas to be able to supply those particular markets.

[00:15:09] One of the things I always say every other time is that, uh, for you to venture into anything, you need to look at the demand and as I have mentioned, there's an increasing demand for this product and not just for it, but in these two towns, for instance, Kisumu you look at the landscape of that particular town. Very limited. There is production yes, but very limited to supply that particular market. You look at Nairobi, because Nairobi is mainly urban, so there is little to no production. And most of the production in Nairobi was done from Kiambu closely, it comes to Nairobi, but increasingly we are seeing farms in Kiambu they're shrinking. Now we are setting up high-rise buildings so a lot of productive land is being lost to infrastructure and real estate.

[00:15:49] So therefore it becomes very important at this particular point to be able to focus on how those people in Nairobi at the moment, and those who are going to live in these buildings, you're setting up in Kiambu then how will they access food? Because food is important, people must eat at all times.

[00:16:03] Margaret: I know this reminds me of the literature we read on, uh, on Sub-Saharan Africa, where they say there population is a population boom. The population is increasing yet, the production of food is also decreasing. So that gap really presents a good opportunity for agri entrepreneurs especially in farm production, to be able to step up and look for innovative ways of increasing food production.

[00:16:26] Jeremiah: I agree with you entirely.

[00:16:29] Margaret: So, one of the things I noted about the project that you're working on presently, it observed that the cultivation of vegetables is more profitable than production of some staple foods. This really caught my attention because I was wondering, which are these. staple foods and the vegetables. So could you give us an example of the profitability margins between specific vegetables versus some of these staple foods that are grown in Western and the Rift area?

[00:17:02] Jeremiah: Absolutely. I spend quite some bit of time in equipping farmers with both technical skills and business skills and the question you have just asked me is one of my favourite part, looking at the business skills and specifically the gross margin analysis, because that's a, game-changer the gross margin, what are you able to make out of what you've produced?

[00:17:18] And so one of my motivations, I mentioned earlier for me to join the agri space is I grew up in Kitale where most of the things that are traditionally grown there is maize. And then, like I also lived in Kakamega at some point I realized there they produce twice in a year. In my regional homeland, they grow these maize twice in a year. In Kitale, it's only grown once. When the maize is removed from that particular field, it's almost during the dry periods, so they don't grow anything and they wait until the following year. So looking at how much money these people make, yes, they may make some big amount of money at the end, but if you calculate it and then and distribute it on a month, on a month basis, you realize they are making very little minute amount of money. And talking about staple crops in Kenya, there are many of them, but we are looking mainly at at maize. When you compare that with the vegetables take, given a case, like for instance, spider plant for since the day of planting up to around three weeks or even four weeks, you already fly picking already getting some of the products.

[00:18:12] Margaret: So, yeah. Sorry, let me just stop you. What is the spider plant? You know, most of our listeners might be wondering what is exactly that, what is the local name?

[00:18:21] Jeremiah: Spider plant we call it a in my home mother tongue we call it Chinsaga.

[00:18:26] Margaret: Chinsaga.

[00:18:27] Jeremiah: Many people call it sagaa

[00:18:29] Margaret: Sagaa of course.

[00:18:30] Jeremiah: Others call it Saget.

[00:18:30] Yeah. As I was saying that when you, of course the value of what you get from this particular crop is not as much as what you get from maize at once but because it's a crop that you continuously cultivate in one year, you can have so many seasons of a spider plant. So when you cumulatively join this particular monies that you are getting, you realize that what you're making at the end of it all is much more compared to any of the staple crops that you can grow in this country.

[00:18:55] Margaret: So how has the vegetable farming contributed to the livelihoods of the youth and women?

[00:19:02] Jeremiah: Livelihoods is in terms of how much money you make and how much, how you become healthier yourself. So you first, when we talk to farmers, we first look at, are they eating these particular vegetables that we've given to them that they actually producing? Are they consuming it for their nutrition value? And over, beyond that, are they making money by selling it to nearby markets or even external markets. So looking for instance, in a Kenya and even in Western Kenya itself, we're seeing a lot of farmers having their lives completely changed through the production of these crops because they are much more healthier and the healthier nation is a working nation. So the fact that they are healthier, they can be able to work on their farms much more, they can be able to contribute to societal issues much better. And because it's a short season crop, it needs your attention almost every other single days. So a lot of social devices we seeing in this particular regions where they are heavily involved in farming is actually greatly reducing. But the most important bit that is also very close to my heart is the fact that you have a quick turnaround and you can be able have to make your money with a very, short period of time.

Post Harvest Management and Value Addition of indigenous vegetables - Challenges and opportunities

[00:20:01] Margaret: Yeah, that's true. How about looking at the angle of post-harvest management? Because the vegetables are more likely, uh, to go bad, faster, as opposed to maize which you can. dry, uh, be able to sell over a period of time especially if you get good storage. Uh, we have those storage sacks that people can, store their well dried grains yet, vegetables within is it even a day or two, they're not looking, their freshest look.

[00:20:33] Jeremiah: Yeah, I must confess the issue of post-harvest handling is a big challenge and a lot of development organizations are now going to really focusing on issues of mitigating post-harvest losses. And I think that ties into the place of market intelligence before you get into production of this particular crops, because you need to really map out what where are you going to sell it how is your distribution chain going to flow along, because if you fail to do that, then you're going to be in a big crisis. But I, as I always say, everything has its has its own risk. So it's important for you to take calculated risk in your production system, true.

[00:21:05] Margaret: So your beneficiaries of this project, the small holder farmers, both the youth and the women are small holder farmers, uh, have, how have they been handling this aspect of post-harvest management and losses associated with it?

[00:21:18] Jeremiah: Yeah, I'll take a case of one of our groups, we actually having a field day there next week and all the things that they have done is they have got into solar drying of these vegetables. So once they harvest they are able to dry it, using the natural sunlight so with that the vegetable is able to stay for a longer period. A lot of organizations as well, from where I come from, they're ventured into also value addition of the vegetables. This enables the vegetables to stay for a longer period. We're seeing increasingly also a lot of Africans moving into the west. When they get there, they're not able to access most of these vegetables that they, they grew up eating. They are strongly desires of eating these in their new land so we're seeing a lot of companies coming into processing of these vegetables and packaging, and be able to send to Africans living in diaspora.

[00:22:03] Margaret: That's true, indigenous vegetables dried product are on demand and even I'm sure the trend will also catch up locally because someone could be so busy, but they might prefer to buy a pack or two and rehydrates and use it in their home because of the convenience and the freshness. And also its nutrient packed dried product is really well nutrient packed.

[00:22:27] Jeremiah: Yeah. You mentioned a very important point and I see there's a big opportunity that is greatly untapped there because I mean, if we, and I'm a person who loves shortcuts to some extent. So if you a very hungry and you want to quickly eat things like indomie you just put in the water and you put into the Sufuria (Sauce Pan) and you quickly, you have your food. So if we had, uh, organizations and companies, agripreneurs who can be able to value add this particular for instance spider plant or manangu (african nightshade). One of the biggest challenges through consumption of this products, traditional vegetables it has a lengthy preparation time. So many people are avoided because of that. So if agripreneurs can look into it such a way that it's so easy to quickly cook it and consume it, then I think it will also stimulate the demand as well.

From subsistence farming to commercial farming

[00:23:08] Margaret: So in addition to the vegetable value chain, you've also worked in other value chains. Like you've mentioned earlier, this is a passion fruit avocados, tree tomato, Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes. So what are some of the challenges faced by women and the youth small holder farmers, when they want to transition from subsistence farming to commercialization of their farm enterprise?

[00:23:33] Jeremiah: Yeah, like many motivational speakers who says they began their business with, uh, with one shilling. On not true sense. I am a lover of passion fruit, and I grow lots of it. I began by growing one single passion fruit, and it did so well when I decided to increase the number of passion fruits I grow, then you need additional resources for you to be able to do that. I think that's where now women and specifically young people face a big challenge in terms of how do they access financing.

[00:24:01] Even when I wanted to do my passion fruit, I needed some bit of money to put the posts and the wire, which is a heavy investment. You try to look at sources of financing. It's not easy to access. Yes. So, so those are one of the major challenges that, uh, specifically young people and women face. And I actually speaking in a conference a couple of weeks back, and I was saying that, uh, integrating young people into the agriculture value chain is very complex, but we make it even more complex when you have, uh, programs that are focusing on very high value crops. You know, for crops like vegetables, it's so easy for these people to get into. But when we are looking at a crop, like a passion fruit for you to profitably run one acre you need that around 200,000 to 300,000. How do you access that such an amount of money? You don't have land, you have no collateral. You, you almost have nowhere to start from. So increasingly one of my major things that are pushing that workshop, that it's important for development organizations that are focusing on these high value crops to then think critically in terms of what they can do more for the young people to easily get into this particular value chain.

[00:25:04] And one of the things I was proposing easily is that enable them to access, one of the most expensive costs, for instance, for passion fruit is the wire. You're able to provide them with trellising wire or even the seedlings, then it can easily incentivize them to get into it. I know there's a whole discussion about it, that this is promoting a tokenism or something like that, but it has to be done in anyway we have to get to somewhere there needs to be some interventions to really encourage them, to get you to this particular venture.

[00:25:29] Margaret: So in the course of your work, maybe through the conferences you're attending or when you're on the ground, with the small holder farmer, are there some innovations or strategies that you've seen being implemented by the farmers to adopt to these challenges?

[00:25:46] Jeremiah: Innovation becomes very important for anyone who is getting into agriculture uh, specifically commercializing it because, uh, I've shared this story before from a friend of mine, who's doing some big things in Eldoret and, uh, I spend most of my Sundays and weekend at a farm. So sometimes when I'm doing out there spraying my crops, I use a knapsack which takes almost forever when he gets to the farm he just sets up a drone, even in a short time he is already cleared over a hundred acres, even someplace a thousand acres.

[00:26:15] So The place of innovation and advanced technologies then because very important. Issues of precision agriculture most of the farmers in Western Kenya, when there is no water, they they're not farming. Those who are farming are drawing water from the borehole or maybe from the rivers and the flash flooding, complete waste of water compared to those who are doing precision agriculture, either laying up of drip irrigation or such like things. There's a lot of precision, so even what they are using less resources to get much more. So they there's a whole array of issues, we can talk about, especially in terms of technological innovations that I believe stands as a game changer in the entire agri space this country and even beyond.

[00:26:53] Sometimes I in a small space where I stay in Eldoret, I try to make beds for production of vegetables. It takes almost a whole afternoon to prepare just two or three beds, but you'll see those people who have taken in advanced technologies, even not very expensive technology, even simple technologies of bed making within a very short duration of time, in few minutes, they already made their bed. So I think for technology plays a plays a very important role for those who want to venture into agri and even to encourage more people to get into it, because it makes it cost effective and also less use of time.

[00:27:25] Margaret: And has a collective action played a role in trying to maybe overcome some of the challenges for young people and women? Which means coming together in a group and undertaking, farming activities together.

[00:27:40] Jeremiah: Yeah. Collective action remains a very big player like game-changer in agri. I grew up in Kitale and most of those farmers, actually our neighbors, the kind of land they own is a quarter an acre others, an eighth of an acre. And they forcing themselves to traditionally grow maize. And the maize that they are growing up to half of that particular maize, they, they love, eh, roasting maize so up to half of that maize is already roasted. So by the time they are harvesting, their maize, they have already lost half of their crop. I mean, they have, they have to eat. It doesn't even last them their whole year. So they, it becomes a very big challenge even when they want to commercialize it. Because then they think about commercialization, where do you sell maize that is produced in a quarter of an acre or even vegetables if you produce it in an eighth of an acre, where do you, where do you sell such amount of, uh, vegetables. Then the place for collective action and aggregation becomes very important.

[00:28:31] And I think even not only for the farmers themselves for businesses, because for me as a business, logistically it becomes very hectic for me going, collecting uh, 200 kilograms from one farm or even 20 kilograms, another farmer, 20 kilograms, but those farmers who have come together and I can be able to collect one tonne from one area it becomes so easy for me as a business. So I think collective action and the aggregation then becomes very important.

Final Thoughts - The 4Ds of agricultural success

[00:28:54] Margaret: Okay. So this is the last, last question and we've had such a wonderful time and I thank you for making the time to come and talk to us. So let's get into the last question. So what advice would you give a young person who wants to venture into agribusiness, but is not sure how to go about it?

[00:29:12] Jeremiah: Yeah I have developed something I call the 4Ds. I have said this before in other forums that I consider it to be the four Ds for agricultural success. And I say these four Ds are drawn from the four Ds that I scored in campus so that, uh, getting a D is not a good thing, but wrong things should not deter you from moving forward.

[00:29:34] So from my 4Ds, I've developed four 4 Ds for agricultural success. Number one is that for the young people to venture in to this, they need to dream big. They need to have big ambitions of what they want to do in any node of the agricultural value chain. Number two, they need to be determined. I mean, some challenges will come along the way, but they need to remain focused and really look at the goal of where their dreams are driving into. They need to diversify. I mean, the agriculture challenges are many. There are so many risks. So just focusing on one particular venture may have increased the level of risk, but if you diversify and look at various lines, then its able to make you perform much better. And the last one is that I'm a believer of the Bible, and I believe in the power of God, that is the ultimate source of everything is not actually last I think he should have been the first D is a divinity. The believe in God that He is the ultimate source of everything. So you, whatever that you do, when you, start. Whenever you think about it, you believe in God to be able to make way for you and for believers in of the Bible. By the way, when God created man, Adam and Eve, He put them in the garden of Eden and putting them there, what He called them to do was not to be doctors or engineers, or even pastors. God, called Adam and Eve to be tillers of the land and to keep the livestock. So in essence, he was calling them to be farmers. So I believe it's, God's calling for everyone to be a farmer.

[00:31:00] Margaret: Wow. What a great way to end our podcast today, looking at the four Ds, dream big, be determined and focused, diversify your business, uh, activities and divinity, believe in God. So thank you so much, Rogito for taking the time to share such useful insights on youth and gender inclusion in agribusiness. I'm sure our listeners have been encouraged to go out, start and grow their businesses. There are many, many opportunities are waiting for them. So thank you very much. If you'd like to connect with our guest you can reach him on Twitter @ Rogito _ jeremy, by email, Jeremyrogito@gmail.com.

[00:31:43] Jeremiah: Thank you so much. Uh, you mentioned that I'll be invited later on one of my closest friend Keldine here in Nairobi has accused me of being a theorist or being a boardroom farmer. So I hope next time when you do this particular engagements, you can do them in the farm so that these interviews, you know, some of these interviews and do them with a suit, people think that you're just talking about theory, so it's important to do it on farm. So that is also looks more experiential.

[00:32:05] Margaret: Oh, that would be nice. It'd be nice to visit you to visit your farm, So thank you very much.

[00:32:11] Jeremiah: Absolutely.

[00:32:11] Margaret: And cheers, thank you.

[00:32:13] Jeremiah: Thank you so much.

Outro

[00:32:13] Margaret: Thank you for taking the time and joining us today. Remember to visit our website shift agrihub.com for show notes for this episode, and other useful resources. We'll also have episodes transcripts for those who love reading, for making quick references and for those with a hearing impairment. And yes, subscribe so that you can receive the latest episodes as we release them

[00:32:42] For now, It's Kwaheri. See you, in the next episode, as we shift mindsets with simple, actionable growth ideas