EAFF push for financing in agriculture

The Eastern Africa Farmers’ Federation (EAFF) is pushing for financing in agriculture across countries in East Africa.

According to EAFF president Elizabeth Nsimadala, youth are still struggling to access credit facilities from mainstream financing that locks out those who lack collateral.

“Stringent rules in accessing financial products is hurting youth entrepreneurs in the agriculture sector. This, even as a huge number of youth shy-off from going into farming and agricultural activities, and instead preferring white collar jobs. The financial institutions have also categorized agriculture as a riskier sector which makes it harder to access financing for agricultural enterprises,” Nsimadala said.

She spoke in Nairobi, during the opening of a three-day youth forum to mark the end of a youth support programme. The ‘scaling-up rural youth access to inclusive financial services for entrepreneurship and employment project’ started in November 2017 to June 2021.

The project aimed at contributing to ending extreme poverty and hunger in the East and Southern Africa region. This is through developing conditions that help strengthen the capacities of rural youth in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, allowing them to set up and run profitable agri-enterprises that ensures their employment and leads to wealth generation for livelihood improvement.

EAFF partnered with the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) in the project which saw more than 10,000 youths from the three countries trained.

Entrepreneurship

“We are proud to announce that the project was very successful. It trained thousands of young agriprenuers and more than $1.7 million (Sh 191.3 million) was loaned to youth in the three countries,” Nsimadala said.

The programme also saw the signing of different partnerships which connect the youth to financial service providers. The project focused on developing necessary skills among young people, thus providing the necessary conditions for entrepreneurship and income generation, identifying and supporting innovative finance mechanisms and analyzing successful practices in detail.

This is with a view of scaling up and sharing lessons learnt with a wider audience. The execution of the project activities was grouped under the 4 outcomes and executed within four components namely capacity building, matching of youth projects to financial institutions, best practice analysis and knowledge sharing, and formation of a regional youth network.

EAFF is a members-based regional farmer’s lobby organization founded in 2001, whose membership consists national farmer federations, national co-operative organisations and national commodity associations in 10 countries in Eastern Africa- Burundi, DRC, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

According to the lobby, access to financial services such as credits, savings and loans, just as much as the access to land, has become of fundamental importance when attempting to start or sustain any agricultural activity.