7/28/2019 ICS factfolder Kenia Agribusiness

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Marije TanisSocial Business Developer

Smallepad 32

3811 MG Amersoort

The Netherlands

Ofce: + 31 33 303 0250Mobile: + 316 14 53 55 20

E-mail: marije.tanis@ics.nl

Skype: marije.tanis

John OtiniRegional Programme Manager

Gold Rock Park

Mombasa Road next to Tusteel complex

P.O Box 13892 - 00800

Nairobi, Kenya

Ofce: +254 (20) 206 30 15 / 17 / 18

Mobile: + 254 722 696 336

Email: john.otini@icsarica.org

Skype: ics.john.otini

Check our website for all our activities: www.ics.nl

WEST KENYAAGRIBUSINESS

For more inormation:

7/28/2019 ICS factfolder Kenia Agribusiness

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ICS (Investing in Children andtheir Societies) strives towards

a better future for children inrural Africa and Asia. Through itsprojects and programs, it builds

on a sustainable growth in welfare and wellbeing

by simultaneously investing in economic and socialopportunities and needs. The central building blocksof the work of ICS are social business, child protectionand skillful parenting.

Agribusiness project

The ISEC (Investing in Social and Economic Change)

program in Western Kenya aims at improving income

and ood security or households. The agribusiness

project is designed to provide arm inputs (such as

hybrid seed, ertilizer, improved bush beans and

traditional vegetables) to armers on credit or the

purposes o ensuring timely planting, adherence to

modern arming technologies and to increase the

harvest. ICS procures the inputs rom dierent suppliers

and allocates them to project ofcers, who will in their

turn distribute the inputs via community acilitators to

individual armers. Farmers are required to have paid

a commitment ee o 500 Kenya shillings beore they

can receive the inputs. Repayments are recouped back

every week.

Partnership with Ministry o Agriculture

The ISEC program was able to seek partnership with

the Ministry o Agriculture or the implementation o the

program. Working together with the ministry is oten

challenged with bureaucracy within the government.

However, partnership is important as the government

has the decision right on many subjects in the area and

access to governmental knowledge institutes. Planned

measures were taken to engage the ministry right rom

the start within all acets o the project. The ministry was

in charge o input quality control, training o community

resource persons and armer to armer learning through

feld days.Partnership with the Ministry o Agriculture in capacity

building o community resource persons yielded

interesting results. Ordinary armers in the community

became technical experts, teaching ellow villagers

complex arming technologies in an unsophisticated

language that was immediately received and adopted by

other armers. As Kennedy Ngao, one o the community

acilitators put it, it is very ulflling when you walk

WEST-KENYA AGRIBUSINESS

around in the village and your neighbours and other

community members respectully call you teacher.

Partnership with Equity Bank

The social business approach adopted by the ISEC

program required that armers who have access to

input credit invest their energies in commercializing

their arms. To encourage an entrepreneurial approach

to arming, ICS partnered with Equity Bank to build

capacity o armers to be able to develop simple

business plans or their arms. Additionally, armers

were trained on basic fnancial management skills to

enable them to determine the proftability o the

various arm enterprises they carry out. Through the

fnancial management training, armers were able to

make savings. Additionally, the response towards the

input package provided on credit was positive as armers

started making prompt repayments to ICS.

Nafcs Ltd.

Part o the agribusiness project is Nafcs Ltd. Nafcs

is a Kenyan maize trading company that is currently

being incorporated in Kenya. Nafcs wants to be

a proftable business, improving the livelihood o

smallholder armers by flling in the imperections in

the Western Kenyan maize supply-chain, specifcally

in Busia and Kakamega. Based on a strong network

with medium-sized millers, smallholder armers,

brokers and other players in the public and private

Kenyan maize market, Nafcs will: buy maize during

harvest seasons when volumes are high and prices

are low, store and treat the maize, sell the maize

outside the harvest season when prices are high.

Nafcs will oer armers market access through

buying their maize, market transparency by

announcing the market price - this will improve

their bargaining power, reasonable market prices,

an increase in the production o maize per acre bycooperating with ICS on production improvement,

and on the longer term, a market also or other crops

produced by the armers

Through this cooperation, sustainable socio-

economic change or the armers results in ood and

income security on the one hand and a proftable

business on the other.