Community forum on employment creation in the horticulture sector in Kenya
This report (PDF) by INCLUDE explains the key messages that emerged during the forum on ‘Employment creation in the horticulture sector in Kenya’ in Nairobi on 19 January 2017. This forum was hosted by The Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) in collaboration with the Centre for African Bio-Entrepreneurship (CABE) and brought together 35 policy actors, practitioners and researchers. The horticulture sector employs over 10 million people, mostly women and youth, and it offers better pay and terms of employment than other agricultural sub-sectors. However, there are some challenges for the horticulture sector; one being the change in agroclimatic conditions in Kenya resulting in high investments to maintain production. Another issue is that smallholder farmers produce low quantities and they are also involved in numerous value chains, which makes it difficult for them to satisfy any single value chain/market. It would help smallholders to form aggregation, but they have difficulties with this. To tackle the problems for smallholders it is important to organize smallholder farmers to aggregate their produce, which will make it easier for them to obtain information, implement standards and access markets. Another strategy suggested during the forum to improve the situation in the horticultural sector is to diversify horticultural produce and shift the focus from mainly roses to include other products, which will create opportunities for other agri products. Agricultural transformation could also contribute in the form of skills development, development of local innovations and technologies and dissemination of available technologies.