A total of seven growing agricultural companies in Kenya have received, from a number of United States agencies, a grant of $5.1 million (Ksh 675.24m) to boost their operations towards improving the country’s food insecurity challenges.
The grant beneficiaries which include Regen ($1.2 million) – an organic fertiliser producer, Sunculture ($800,000) – which makes solar irrigation systems, iProcure ($1.2 million) – an agricultural procurement platform and Afrimac Nut Company ($450,000) – an exporter of locally processed macadamia nuts and oil are expected to use the funds in supporting access to agricultural inputs and production technologies.
Others are Exotic-EPZ Kenya ($1 million) – a processor and exporter of Macadamia nuts, Goshen Farm Exporters ($300,000), and Victory Farms ($150,000) – which operates fish cages in Lake Victoria and sells fresh fish produce across Kenya. Goshen will expand its processing capacity and market compliance, enabling them to export to the USA and other premium markets while Victory is expected to quadruple its operations over the next five years.
“We expect this grant to be used by the companies in expanding Kenyan value-added processing and the export of products like macadamia nuts and dried fruit as well as boost incomes for over 1 million Kenyan farmers,” said David Gosney, United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) mission director for Kenya.
The grant support was announced by agency (USAID) partnership with the US government’s trade promoter, Prosper Africa, and Feed the Future Initiative during the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) business summit in Nairobi Wednesday last week.
Gosney said the seven companies selected for this grant were chosen because they are “investing in solutions to improve the lives of Kenyan farmers and to create new jobs and new economic opportunities”.
This, according to him, comes at a time when many farmers in Kenya are faced with recurrent drought and significant price increases especially in essential commodities that has been driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
USAID’s deputy assistant administrator Michael Michener said the organisation will continue to roll out such grants in the future to support Kenyan farmers gain wider access to markets for their products.
