To empower these agripreneurs and create a thriving agribusiness ecosystem, a paradigm shift is imperative.

How can collaboration among public and private sectors, and development actors mitigate these challenges?

Partnerships and collaboration bring together diverse expertise, resources, and perspectives to help tackle complex challenges holistically. Our signature program in Kenya and across Africa is hinged on building strategic partnerships and co-creating inclusive and profitable business models that improve incomes for farmers and other actors across the value chain.

Collaboration among partners such as Governments, the private sector, smallholder farmers, innovators, women, youth, and development actors is a powerful solution for investing in youth enterprises as they can pool resources, expertise, and networks to create a more comprehensive and supportive ecosystem for young entrepreneurs. Partnerships with the youth are a key focus for Heifer, and this has led to several initiatives like our AYuTe Africa Challenge. We have seen that partnerships lead to increased women and youth participation in agriculture due to the reduced labour-intensive practices that innovative technologies provide, and the growth of agritech as a subset of a booming tech ecosystem that has attracted significant interest, investment, and job creation.

How important is mentorship and training for youth-led enterprises?

We believe innovative capital is both tangible and intangible; it is the sum of access to finance, access to markets, knowledge-sharing, global networking, access to technology, and mentorship. Through AYuTe we not only award winners but provide training and mentorship for a minimum of three months, so it is not just about grants but also providing a winwin ecosystem for most of these young enterprises.

By equipping these young people with the right skills, we enable them to drive innovation in agribusiness while integrating technology and finance as enablers, which then supports smallholder farmers to identify and exploit agribusiness opportunities. Mentoring these innovators not only fosters their personal and professional growth but also enhances the success and sustainability of their ventures, ultimately leading to more lucrative and impactful investments.

When you are not working, what is that one thing that you enjoy doing?

When I’m not working, one of my most enjoyable and fulfilling activities is supporting girls’ football teams from less privileged backgrounds through mentorship and providing academic scholarships. I actively mentor a specific girls’ football team that we built from the ground up, and through this initiative, we’ve successfully enabled some talented players to pursue further studies abroad. I strongly believe that there’s an underrepresented voice in the sports sector, particularly in football – the voice of women. An example is the disparity in attention between the men’s World Cup and the women’s World Cup. My passion lies in empowering as many individuals as possible to become advocates for women’s voices in sports and to champion equality and recognition for women in the field.

If you were to give young people just one piece of advice, what would that be?

I live by this mantra, “Believe Begin Become.” My message to the youth in all fields, not only agriculture, is to go for the available opportunities. Avoid self-doubt and the search for reasons why you can’t chase your dreams, instead exhibit resilience and take action. You need to take that initial step to make it happen. You have to Begin to Become.