At WING farm, we continue to prioritize youth empowerment by providing alternative sources of income to end poverty and hunger. Since unemployment in Kenya is at an all-time high, most graduates (both college and university) have found it increasingly difficult to find a job. Worse, certificate holders from TVET institutions struggle to earn a sustainable living.
Agriculture and Youth Empowerment
The Agriculture sector presents a huge opportunity for the creation of employment to absorb the rising number of unemployed youth and ensure the achievement of food security for future generations. However, the sector is yet to exploit the youth’s potential fully, and it remains largely unattractive. The situation is exacerbated by the perception of agriculture as a career of last resort, one of drudgery and low monetary benefits. Information on access to markets and factors of production, including land and financing, remains extremely limited, hindering adequate engagement of the youth in agriculture.
Agriculture contributes approximately 30% of Kenya’s annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) directly and 27% indirectly. The sector is, therefore, critical in creating employment and uplifting the living standards of Kenya’s young population.
Agricultural Extension and Advisory
At Wing Farm, we train young people to adopt modern agricultural practices to boost agricultural productivity, increase food security and improve rural livelihood. We have successfully trained farmers through our dairy and poultry farming extension campaigns. WING FARM continues to offer training to registered youth groups and individual members of society in the spirit of improving agricultural production. At WING FARM, we provide the best agri-business models to help you estimate profits from livestock keeping. Our focus has been poultry, dairy, aquaculture (fish) farming, and climate-smart agriculture.
Youth Based Programs
We have introduced Youth Based Programs such as youth agricultural extension, online extension for youth, farmers’ field day visits, and youth farm camp platforms that help train youths and other farmers on how they can maximize their production. Our team, made up of livestock production and biostatics experts, has gone out of its way to create digital platforms to help youths interact with WING FARM. Interactions will help youths learn strategies to improve dairy farming production by:
- Teaching youths sustainable farm practices
- Pasture and feed management
- Animal health and production.
Going into the future, we will help youths direct runoff fecal matter in biogas digester to improve clean, renewable energy production.
In poultry farming, we continue to offer training on rearing chicken for eggs (layers), meat (broilers), and valuable inputs on increasing the profitability for Kienyeji (indigenous chicken) farmers. We link farmers with the best market for their products, such as milk and eggs.
For daily farmers, we connect our farmers with the best buyers for their milk and suggestions on banking that will help them use the profits to improve their livelihoods. For the chicken farmers, WING FARM connects chicken farmers with the best hatchers for the best quality of day-old chicks for both layers and boilers. We also train them on the best marketing strategies to improve sales for their end products, such as meat and eggs.
Our training activities on livestock rearing practices empower youths by providing alternative sources of income and discouraging them from entering into criminal activities, drug abuse, and depressing activities that would otherwise affect their mental health. At the request of youths, we have offered multiple field training programs such as the Dairy Farming Extension Campaigns in Ol Joro Orok, Nyandarua, and the Poultry Farming Extension Campaigns in Gathunguri, Kiambu. We understand that our empowerment programs attract the attention of youths all over the country. For this reason, we have talk and training programs on Twitter where youths from all other the country participate and ask their most pressing questions to our speakers.
Wing Farm Youth Empowerment Goal
Our goal is to keep encouraging sustainable growth in the numbers of youth in the Agriculture sector. We know the youths we continue to mentor have other entrepreneurial ideas they deem impossible to pursue due to the lack of funds. The sustainable profits from dairy farming and poultry-keeping activities will enable youths to gain the much capital they need to invest into growing their wildest expectations. Most importantly, we understand that our training programs are a platform for bringing youths together and helping them share ideas for improving their livelihoods to elevate themselves from poverty and hunger.
