In the undulating terrain of Nyeri’s Kinunga, Charles Mwangi tends to his array of nurseries. Apples, peach, pomegranate and avocado seedlings dance in a morning breeze, seemingly excited at the intermittent clicks of his camera.
Soon, he will post the photos on his Facebook page, alerting potential customers that time is nigh. They can visit his farm and buy themselves the seedlings. Probably for a bargain, even.
He will then guide the farmers on how to attend to their crops, gradually mentoring them up and until they are well acquainted with the process.
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As we speak, he is dealing with almost 200 clients. All of them have been sourced through Facebook, either directly or indirectly.
“When a customer is satisfied, they will pass the word to friends. If you go to your neighbour’s farm and see his apple trees sagging with fruit, you will ask, ‘where did you obtain apples that perform this well?’ and they will directed you to the persom who sold them the seedling,” he says, insisting that the power of referrals is underappreciated. Easily the most common way he gets his customers.
There is something disturbing about the demographics of his clientele though. They are predominantly young.
This means they may not be the farmers he was targeting, as The Ministry of Agriculture puts the average age of Kenyan farmers at 60 years. Most of the youthful population have escaped to the urban areas to look for white collar jobs.
“Almost all social media users are the youth. The older generation is not too enthusiastic about social media.”
Also critically because social media interactions give little heed to age and the older generation is likely to feel their space and moral standings impeded by the carefree attitude of the younger generation, Mr Mwangi explains.
He feels that this is a big blow to digital advertising for agribusiness enthusiasts as it is often the older generation that has the resources, including money to buy the seedlings and farms on which to conduct the farming.
“So you find such a high number of the youth interested in, and asking about, agricultural products, but unable to buy.”
Mr Mwangi has been in this business four years now. Despite the fact that social media is limiting and focuses on the younger generation, he has a lot of positives to report. Over 90 per cent of his customers have been sought through social media. Occasionally, he posts on Facebook page Digital Farmers Kenya, a platform where digital farming enthusiasts meet to post about their trade.
In this, and other like platforms on social media, farmers tell subscribers about their trade, furnishing social media with photos that appeal to potential buyers. This is followed by an extensive explanation of what the crop could be used for, and maybe how it is grown. Ultimately, the farmers’ location and oftentimes, the farmers’ address.
The interactions sometimes run into their thousands with consultations, declarations of intention to sell and to buy, and congratulations messages flooding the comment sections.
On good days, some of the comments morph into genuine business.
Naftal Mocha runs City Yard Farming solutions, a sustainable urban farming company.
From Hunters, Kasarani, Mr Mocha runs his agribusiness and makes his sales to customers from across the country.
Once upon a time, he reared chickens and rabbits on the rooftop of his apartment building. He also grew veggies on the balcony. The library and information science graduate, now a 30 years old father of two, runs two thriving farms, one where he carries out crop farming and another animal rearing.
Naftal believes that the future is in agribusiness. He savours use of social media to market his business. That way, he says his geographical reach is enhanced.
“From the start, I would post online that I had chickens and rabbit for sale, gradually growing my trade’s prominence among interested people,” he says.
“Through social media, I have sold over 1,600 rabbits and over 300 chicken. A rooster goes for Sh1,500 while a hen will cost Sh1,200. I usually serve three to 10 customers in a day.”
He has farmed insect repellant plants and herbs and even sold seeds for the same. He has also sold rabbit feeders, built cages for the rabbits, and offered consultancy to farmers. His strongest marketplace has been on social media. And the potential keeps on growing, he insists.
Timothy Mburu is on the road to NaroMoru on a Saturday afternoon after successful business in the city. Like many times before, it began with his posts on his Facebook page.
A ready crop of garlic was posted, and a Facebook user saw something they had been looking for. Over the platform, they negotiated a deal and Mr Mburu, earlier on this same Saturday, transported the produce to his customer.
It has been that way since 2014. He connects with his market on social media.
“Most of these customers are people I have never met before. We interact on social media, and agree on prices and delivery.”
On a four acre farm, he farms potatoes. On another of similar size, Mr Mburu maintains a cabbage crop, while he farms garlic on a two acre farm in NaroMoru.
“We have always relied on garlic imported from China. I am trying as much as possible to penetrate a market dominated by the Chinese,” he says, confident that he will expand his garlic farming and sales to a point where he is the go-to man for hotels, and other institutions, that need garlic.
The interaction on social media has always been of benefit to him. He has been able to interact with and sell to many online buyers.
“The connections one gets on social media are priceless,” he says. “On these platforms information travels very fast and this is a good thing for any apt businessperson. There is also no limit to the geographical reach of information.”
On the dominance of social media by young people, most of them brimming with ideas and passion but starved of money, Mr Mburu says that that is not a problem for him.
“The youth are these days doing very well in agriculture. And for the older generation, trust me, those that really feel the need for information only available online will look for ways to get onto Facebook.”
A recent Africa Development Bank forum highlighted that the African agribusiness sector will be worth $1 trillion by 2030. At the moment, it stands at around $7 billion.
Agribusiness is receiving a huge boost also, with funders seeing great potential in Africa.
The European Union (EU) in July committed to funding 200 agribusinesses in Kenya to the tune of Sh22.2 in the next five years.
The initiative dubbed Agribiz, which targets women and youth-led ventures, aims at creating 17,000 jobs in the agricultural value chain across the country. It is a partnership of the EU, the Kenyan government, the Royal Danish Embassy and the Kenya Climate Innovation Centre (KCIC).
In an interview with Mo Ibrahim in 2019, Aliko Dangote said that were he starting his ascendancy to wealth today, he would go to agribusiness. He insisted that there is so much potential in that for Africa. His words have been echoed by many other people, including Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa.
And while it is undoubted that agriculture as a business has a huge potential in Africa, marketing is one of the biggest impediments to its success, and the wellbeing of farmers, most of them who are unable to sell their produce at prices that would be justifying their toil.
As such, many of them are in poverty, and often have to do with exploitative prices for their produce.
Syngenta Foundation manager Stella Kimani, speaking on a FarmKenya Connect forum on KTN News, recently said that agribusiness has other elements such as input supply, markets, mechanisation and storage, all that go beyond farm production and that should not be ignored.
"Women and youth's involvement in agriculture is pulling traction more and more," Ms Kimani said. If only they can market online, then good business for them.
Reengineering of agribusiness into digital platforms is among the targets of the Treasury as Digital Service Tax becomes part of the elaborate tax-base expansion plans that the exchequer has put in place, casting its tax net wider in a bid to tap in more monies.
Transactions thus done online between the farmers and their customers might attract, with effect from January 1, 2021 if all goes to plan, a charge.
Agriculture was already contributing 26 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and another 27 per cent of GDP indirectly through linkages at the start of the decade, according to Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO). Later studies have put the direct contributions at over 34 per cent.
The sector employs more than 40 per cent of the total population and more than 70 per cent of Kenya's rural people.
Horticultural Crops Development Authority (HCDA) Head of Directorate, Benjamin Tito insists that there is a raft of crops that farmers can expect to reap well from in the near future.
“Avocados (hass), capsicum, French beans, tomatoes, bananas, onions, watermelons, mushrooms, sugar snap, and snow peas will be of very great importance? to the farmers.”
And if they are able to jump onto the bandwagon and advertise them online, then the better. From the comfort of their houses, they can make their sales and reap from the advances of technology, coupled with a desire to know what is most attractive in excruciatingly dynamic markets.
