By Kimuri Mwangi
The Kenya National Farmers’ Federation (KENAFF) and iCRA have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at delivering world-class agribusiness training to farmers across Kenya.
KENAFF has partnered with iCRA which is a foundation based in the Netherlands, with over 35 years of experience in education, research, innovation, and agribusiness with a focus on strengthening agriculture value chains.
The MOU was signed on 21st March at KENAFF Headquarters in Thogoto, Kikuyu with the farmers federation’s Chief Executive Officer Daniel Mwendah representing it while Cees Peter van den Brink signed on behalf of iCRA.
“We are happy as the National Farmers Federation that we are entering into this partnership with iCRA because when you look at the KENAFF Strategic Plan 2022-2026 among other things we are looking at making our KENAFF County Associations more professional. We are looking at ways through which our members that is farmers of course, looks at what they do as business which means enhancing their business thinking skills and enhancing their business planning skills. We are also looking at strengthening our county associations when it comes to lobbing and advocacy at the county level because each county has a board of nine people and these are the people who engage with the Governors and agriculture CECs,” said Mwendah.
“I’m very happy we signed a partnership agreement of collaboration with KENAFF because iCRA is working in a niche and we rely on partnerships like this one. I would say we are training professionals on how to build partnerships and we really believe agribusiness is people’s business and it comes with a lot of interpersonal skills which are very key to make business work,” opined Cees Peter van den Brink.
The two organizations will focus on Youth Empowerment with the aim being to create employment opportunities and spark interest in agribusiness among the youth. The initiatives for this will include reviving 4K Clubs in schools across three pilot counties to impart practical skills and nurture entrepreneurship from a young age.
On affordable training, they will develop affordable fee-based training services tailored to specific member categories which will ensure access to essential skills and knowledge for farmers. This integration of high-level training into the member benefits package aims to enhance farmers’ capacity in the agricultural value chain.
There are also plans for leadership and staff development where tailor-made facilitation training focusing on partnership facilitation, large-scale interventions, and practice-based training will be offered. This will equip employees with soft skills for effective engagement and intervention tailoring at the county level, supporting KENAFF’s county-level expansion. KENAFF and iCRA will also collaborate on joint fundraising initiatives to address emerging issues such as climate-smart agriculture, gender programming, and agricultural innovations. Leveraging extensive networks, the two organizations will develop funding concepts and proposals targeting European donors, with KENAFF as the implementing
