Farm Concern International, FCI, with support from Tearfund UK hosted the Arid & Semi-arid Lands Value Chain-Wide Profitability and Market Access Experiential Learning Forum on Wednesday, May 10th 2017 at FCI Africa Office, KALRO Campus, Waiyaki way.

The interactive forum was a critical learning pathway of a New Commercialization Phase of Agro-pastoralism in Kenya. 

The Forum brought together local, regional and international private sector partners, agro-pastoralists, buyers, county and national government representatives, research organizations, universities and development organizations for strategic scale up of Arid and Semi-Arid value chains-wide opportunities in Kenya.

The Forum revealed the massive commercialization opportunities in the Arid and semi-arid lands with a particular bias to Northern Kenya. Farm Concern International shared statistical evidence based on end-term data that has been gathered through action research embedded into the implementation and end of project evaluation for the anchor value chains only; green grams, goats, sheep, cattle and camel milk. The lessons were learned from the Commercialization and Market Access Programme (CoMaP) implemented by Farm Concern International with support from Tearfund UK.

Mr. Julius Githu, Marsabit County Director of Agriculture addressing participants during the ASALs Value Chain wide profitability Forum

The Programme transformed lives of 4,161 Agro pastoralist households organized into 11 Commercial Villages who recorded sales worth USD 2,319,127 from 2015 – 2016 through the Commercial Village Model [CVM]. The trade was realized from sale of 903MT of green grams, 128,840 litres of camel milk, 988 cattle, 23,797 goats/sheep and other staples. The market-led programme has triggered agricultural investments through catalyzing agro-pastoralists profitable commercialization, aggregation, market access, innovation dissemination and village savings for financial inclusion. 

Speaking during the Forum, Mumbi Kimathi, FCI Strategy and Innovations Director noted that Agro-pastoralist commercialization and market development is an intense process which demands strategic business partnership with private sector, Government, farmer organizations and development partners. FCI has developed business partnership with 33 Wholesale buyers, 11 Commercial Villages, 26 Commercial Producer Groups, 26 integrated implementing partners, financial institutions and input suppliers. The Agro-pastoralist market-led programme has increased acreage under green gram production from 77 acres to 908 acres. 

The intervention is transforming the economic landscape for 1,801 women [43%] & 824 youth [20%] through competitive participation in agro-enterprises and value chain-wide employment opportunities. FCI through its Food Basket Model has created an enabling farm-level crop and livestock diversification for food & nutrition security and climate resilience. The integrated ASAL initiative focusing on livestock and crop commercialization, markets and trade development in Northern Kenya is impacting 17,443 beneficiaries.

“How do we utilize the available resources to ensure that what we are witnessing in our country does not reoccur in the future?“ posed Madam Glady Wathanga, Tearfund Country Director. She cited an occurrence the previous week where floods swept carcasses in some of the areas affected by the current droughts. 

Flourishing Agro-pastoralists in Northern Kenya shared their tales of transformation as a result of the commercialization and market access programme.