Spinoffs session: the case of Hillside Green, Kenya

Eunice K. Mwongera (BA Hons, MBA)

CEO & Founder

Hillside Green

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The case of horticulture farming and small scale farmers

1. Horticulture is labour incentive- use of cheap rural labour

2. Smallness of plots ideal for vegetable production

3. Business sense - it makes business sense for the exporter

4. Agribusiness rural Africa- by its very nature the rural area is agribusiness hence it’s not a new concept, it is not difficult to introduce technology- most hort. in Kenya have embraced EU introduced global gap certification standards

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Key success factors

Improved rural lifestyle

Access to markets for the rural products

Available readily disposable revenues to farmers

Crop rotation

Alternative source of income as opposed to traditional farming

Mainstreaming the rural farming community to the country’s economy, i.e foreign earning

Addressing food insecurity, poverty in rural areas.

technology transfer, skills and knowledge to farmers

introduction of contract farming as a structure (prices, consistency, volumes, quality)

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Challenges

farmers can be very disjointed

poverty levels interfere with farming strategy

side selling of produce to brokers – dishonouring of the contracts

compromising on quality and agreed standards

unaffordable requirements e.g. pesticides way out of reach of farmers

rudimental way of farming- not professionalised (no records, sales, lots of goodwill with products, farming as a hobby)

water challenges- most of agriculture is rain fed and rain is unreliable

high cost of production challenges the small holder

competition from products produced in Guatemala, Morocco and Egypt where governments have provided incentives making it cheaper for their farmers

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Mechanisms for scaling up

Need for intensified private sector/government partnership to provide extension services and training to farmers

Agriculture based projects/programmes that target each challenge e.g. COLEACP/PIP in Africa targets standards certification in the food value chain and has succeeded in reaching the rural farmer

Aiding the exporter/ private sector by agribusiness ngos, funders, organisations in areas that challenging such: Right technology Irrigation to mitigate rain fed challenges Pesticide management Post harvest challenges/losses (improved transportation and storage

faculties) Marketing structures (address and develop organised market system

even to local market e.g. the closed street shop selling concept used in western where a street is closed for a particular market day)

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Suggested methods’ of involving smallholder farmers

Create partnership/farmers groups/Sacco’s/for ease of governance – ensure farmers are empowered

Farmers contract farming

Introduce technology that meets farmers needs (post harvest cooling facility)

Short term credit facility to support farm inputs

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How can we help farmers to adapt to the pull culture of supermarket?

Organised market structures

Training on post harvest handling

Provision of refer transport to keep crop moisture

Provision of cooler facility in rural areas

Educate farmers on commercial value of farming through IT resource centre based in their area of operation (where they are trained on record keeping, simple book keeping methods, quality, and basic IT) use of Solar in the remotest area has been seen to open