The Problem

30% of Kenyans suffer from food insecurity and majority are dependent on smallholder farming for their income while living below the poverty line. At the same time, over 90% of national food supply depends on them. Despite this, 40-50% of horticulture produce in Kenya goes to waste due to poor post-harvest handling and supply chain inefficiencies. This is due to issues such as farmers being isolated from the markets as well as the cold storages, and the produce being moved through too many middlemen, who taking large fees from the farmers.

Currently 35% of Kenyan youth is either unemployed or underemployed. Especially youth in rural regions struggle to find decent employment opportunities. This leaves youth in uncertain circumstances and making them feel hopeless about their futures. Since its beginning, SokoFresh AgriHubs has been focused on employing youth in agriculture to offer them an opportunity to earn a decent living and plan their futures.

Moreover, SokoFresh has been operating with an average of 40% women employees. Despite women making most of the agricultural workforce in Kenya, they encounter limited employment opportunities compared to men. These issues are not only visible in Kenya, but in most Sub-Saharan Africa as well.

The Solution

Through this project, SokoFresh aims to scale up their business to reach, hire and retain more youth and women in Kenya. They will especially focus on providing women with more opportunities to work and reaching their target of 50% women employees. A key objective of SokoFresh is to develop a scalable and replicable approach towards eliminating post-harvest food loss in smallholder farmer value chains, as well as improving the resilience and livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

SokoFresh offers affordable, accessible, and semi-mobile solar powered cold storages on a rental or integrated approach and market access for smallholder farmers. By grouping farmers together, they are easier to serve and share knowledge about harvesting and market prices through SokoFresh digital channels and field team network. The digital channels also enable farmers to provide feedback through SMS. Additionally, SokoFresh offers advisors for farmers to have better quality yield, through their field staff and partners. Produce moves from farms to the cold storage facility nearby to wait until the volume is large enough to sell. With cold storage, the produce can be aggregated to bulk which means getting better prices and better salary.

When SokoFresh sets up a Hub in a region, this entails the recruitment of youth and women groups who then work as agents to onboard farmers in the region currently growing the required produce. The agents recruited as well as the farmers onboarded are 50% women. With SokoFresh being the only party involved in direct linkage to markets, the farmers are able to get a better rate per kilo of produce. Due to better post-harvest handling, they are also able to sell more produce. SokoFresh offers training to equip the youth recruited and onboarded with the knowledge and skills needed to excel in various aspects of agriculture. Agents and harvesters are trained on post-harvest handling while farmers are trained on agronomics.

Of the total 3378 jobs (51% women), 795 will be improved jobs and 2583 will be created. Improved jobs will consist of farmers and transporters, while created jobs will be for agents, harvesters and casuals, hub operators and paid interns.