The Problem

Despite youth showing interest in agriculture and entrepreneurship, unemployment and underemployment are serious issues in Kenya. Most of the jobs are of low productivity and offer informal wages. This is especially the case in rural areas where fewer job opportunities exist. Young people, especially young women, in agricultural sector are also often left out from the employment opportunities.  

The Solution

In order to improve jobs and create more youth employment, Happy Cow ltd is expanding their business model. They do this by increasing their dairy production to supply for an additional 2000 households and therefore creating more jobs. The expansion project will focus especially on hiring more youth and making sure that they are compensated fairly and trained properly. The project will provide training to youth, women and smallholder farmers on milk quality and production, as well as empower them in entrepreneurship and participation in agriculture. By engaging youth to participate, Happy Cow is also able to identify major challenges at the farms and provide assistance. Having more youths at the farms will also facilitate quicker adoption of technological advancements boosting productivity at much faster rates, and thus increasing wages. Despite employing more youth, embracing innovation in farm mechanisation will also encourage to more regenerative agriculture.  

Moreover, the project will create a platform to ensure that both youth and women will have increased access to knowledge, skills and marketing information to commercialize their production. The project is also upgrading its inhouse dairy training facilities to including more women.  

Finally, solar power will be utilised to increase sustainability and to decrease costs which leads to better quality milk production.