Alex Rose-Innes
Young agri-entrepreneurs across Africa are leading the way to invigorate the agricultural sector as predictions are that the continent would need to import more than USD 100 billion worth of food by 2025 to feed the growing continental population.
One of the most well-known change-makers is Rodgers Kirwa, aka Mr Agriculture, who is using his Twitter site, #AgribusinessTalk254, to inspire young people to take up agriculture.
The young Kenyan is known as a passionate advocate for agriculture and through his enterprise, iAgribiz Africa, he is sharing his knowledge and acting as mentor for those wishing to follow in his footsteps. The organisation is working towards breaking stereotypical thinking that agriculture is only for the less educated.
iAgribiz Africa boasts a model farm and training centre to support his community of 40 smallholders. Kirwa also educates and assist with information on how to obtain land and finance. Already, he had created a loyal following, not only in his home country, Kenya, but across Africa as young African farmers are taking charge of their own future, realising that governments would eventually follow suit.
Kirwa grew up in a farming family wherein his mother supported them as a small-scale farmer in an agricultural community in western Kenya’s Nandi Hills. iAgribiz Africa was started three years ago and today is also teaching greenhouse farming, drip irrigation in a water-scarce environment, understanding of the supply chain and markets and organic fertiliser practices.
Big on research, Kirwa believes in understanding the market in order to be successful. Before launching iAgribizAfrica, he studied agri-business management at Kenya’s Egerton University.
It is time for positive role models to take up the agriculture challenge on the African continent as young people are increasingly moving to cities in search of what they perceive as more glamorous jobs. Scholars are in agreement that agriculture is the future of the continent as the answer to unemployment, food scarcity and poverty. A two-year old youth report from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation shows that agriculture industry is the backbone of many countries’ Gross Domestic Product.
With the farming industry predicted to remain the strongest in weathering the negative effects of climate change, the hope of the African continent rests on the shoulders of young people such as Kirwa.
