We work with smallholder women and youth farmers to implement and scale wealth and job creation livelihood initiatives.

The Problem

Despite producing food for a substantial proportion of the world’s population, due to lack of support services, the smallholder women and youth farmers rarely reach their potential. Lack of adequate and unequal capacities in Quality Management, Production Techniques, and Business Development Support Services as well as impediments to increased trade still plague these farmers. Low quality and lack of safety assurance of produce makes it difficult to deliver to lucrative market segments both regionally and internationally.

Smallholder farmers continue to face huge challenges in complying with market standards, which in turn affects the marketability of their produce. Among these challenges has been the low access to Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) training and certification thereby locking out a large percent of smallholder women and youth farmers. These threats to trade can be mitigated by application and compliance to the prevailing standards in horticulture as well as value addition on raw produce. It is estimated that in the domestic market, about 40% of produce is lost due to post harvest spoilage and lack of value addition skills.

Our Solutions

We have 6 main intervention areas which form our product and service offering

Capacity Building

Good Agricultural practice (GAP) training helps women and youth farmers improve their farming. The training revolves around food hygiene, safety on the farm and how to produce crops that are safe for consumption, Food handling, fertilizer and chemical application are critical GAP aspects covered during group training sessions.

Entrepreneurship training helps the women and youth farmers become more enlightened and creative when looking for markets for their produce. Farmers become more innovative when selecting which crops to grow thus taking smallholder horticulture as a business.

Training on Record Keeping results in Self-employment and also helps women and youth farmers keep track of key farm activities such as pesticide application dates to ensure traceability, a key requirement for export produce. Keeping records also allows women and youth farmers to analyze and control costs thus ensuring better earnings.

Horticulture Value Addition

We work with smallholder women and youth farmers to identify high value horticultural crops, organize production clusters, and provide the necessary production and post- harvest value addition technologies

Market Linkages

HortiFina Ltd identifies suitable and reliable markets for the members’ produce and acts as a link between the women and youth producers and these markets. This is attained through a Contracting Process.

Climate Change Mitigation

HortiFina Ltd takes cognizant of the effects of climate change on smallholder farmers particularly women and youth. We equip farmers with the skills, knowledge and practices necessary for them to succeed in climate smart farming. The interventions include adoption of irrigation, rainwater harvesting, tree planting and conservation agriculture.