Leadership on Supportive Policies and Strategies at Regional Level
All governments have a responsibility to develop robust and effective evidence-based policies for economic growth and food security. But good data on which to base policy is seldom available. Although all East African Community (EAC) Member States have policies on agricultural development, food security, and nutrition, they have a number of weaknesses. Kilimo Trust commissioned a number of strategic studies and organised high level regional meetings and discussions to strengthen well-designed food security policy and strategy for the region.
Kilimo Trust has been supporting the commercialising of technical innovations in key areas of food and energy security. Programmes and projects supported included the following:
Across East Africa commercial banks are cash-rich but this rarely goes to agriculture. Although the sector generates 50-70% of national incomes and is the region's largest employer it receives less than 3 percent of total commercial lending. Even then, agricultural investment focuses on plantations, horticulture, and export crops. Smallholder farmers are largely neglected, even though they are the principal contributors to food security in the regional economy. They are considered too risky for lending. Kilimo Trust has worked to address these disparities.
Building Institutions For Private-Private Partnerships
Building private-private partnerships is based broadly on the idea of helping smallholder farmers to become ‘business ready’ by forming producer and marketing groups and linking those to commercial markets – something they are unable to do as individual smallholders. We have helped to build many partnerships across East Africa, identify viable commercial market opportunities, improve on-farm production, and develop supply chains that connect farmers to markets. Some focused on basic staples such as maize and soya bean, and others on wide range of cash crops such as barley for the malting industry, African indigenous vegetables, organic vegetables, onions, cassava, mushrooms, garlic, cashew, honey, poultry, fish, silk, and essential oils.
If smallholders are to improve their livelihoods then they must have access to reliable wholesale markets their produce. While farmers in most Asian countries already do this, wholesale markets in Africa are lagging behind and those that have been developed generally have inadequate facilities and huge problems of congestion, waste, and pollution. In view of this we have funded initiatives to look at the potential for wholesale markets in Nairobi and Kigali.