In late July 2025, Agri Enhance visited Meru County to meet with youth farmer groups across Timau, Gachua, and Kaguma. These vibrant young farmers, many of them women, are the heartbeat of Kenya’s future food systems. Yet their stories reveal both promise and persistent barriers that stand in the way of sustainable income from farming.
The farmers we met are primarily engaged in maize production, while youth in Gachua also grow sorghum, a crop well-suited to their environment. Despite their energy and resilience, they face a daunting set of challenges.
Key Challenges
In Timau, farmers highlighted the impact of cold weather, while across all locations, pests and diseases cut into yields. In Kaguma, we encountered a very young group of farmers, just 18-21 years old, many fresh out of high school. Their knowledge gaps are stark; few have heard of aflatoxins, leaving them vulnerable to post-harvest losses and compromised grain quality.
Market frustrations were widespread. Sorghum farmers in Gachua explained how buyers like EABL simply stop purchasing once their regional targets are met. This leaves farmers with surplus harvests, and without proper storage facilities, much of it risks going to waste. Across the board, young farmers lamented poor linkages to reliable markets. Without affordable transport options, farmers are forced to sell at the farm gate, where buyers dictate low prices. Access to quality seed remains a recurring challenge, with many farmers speaking of the inability to consistently obtain reliable and improved seed varieties. Views on crop insurance were divided. Farmers in Gachua shared positive experiences, including instances where they had been adequately compensated for losses. In contrast, farmers in Timau were deeply mistrustful, describing insurance as a scam and arguing that compensation, if any, rarely equals losses.
Women youth farmers face the toughest hurdles in accessing land. The plots they lease are often far from home, leaving them vulnerable to theft, high transport costs, and the added expense of hiring caretakers. In Kaguma, we also learned that young women face an extra layer of vulnerability when leasing land, as inexperienced women farmers are often scammed by landowners who exaggerate plot sizes. What is leased as an acre often turns out to be much smaller. Annual leases, typically Ksh 7,000–10,000 per acre, further limit planning, as most youth lack the capital to lease land long-term.
Finance is another persistent constraint. Across all sites, lack of working capital was described as the most significant barrier to scaling production. Many young farmers turn to side hustles to cover daily needs, leaving agriculture as an uncertain source of income rather than a dependable business.
Other challenges compound the problem:
- Soil testing remains inaccessible, leaving farmers to apply the same fertilizers each season regardless of soil needs.
- Extension services are thin on the ground—public officers rarely reach them, while private providers are available but too costly. In Kaguma, young farmers rely instead on peers, parents, YouTube tutorials, or TV programs like Shamba Shape Up.
Pathways Forward
Women and young people in particular face compounded barriers, yet they remain central to the resilience of Kenya’s food systems. Approximately 80% of the population is under 35, and agriculture remains the largest employer. Yet only 10% of youth are directly engaged in agriculture. Women, who provide 70–80% of agricultural labor in Kenya, continue to face systemic hurdles in land ownership and decision-making.
Despite these challenges, the voices from Timau, Gachua, and Kaguma point to one truth: young people want farming to work. What they lack are the structural enablers that would allow them to transform agriculture into a pathway to income uplift. Several opportunities stand out:
- Strengthening market linkages through aggregation centers, affordable transport, and diversified buyers beyond single offtakers.
- Making land access fairer and safer, especially for women, by supporting group leasing models and enforcing transparency in lease agreements.
- Expanding training and extension, combining digital learning with in-person, youth-friendly approaches to Climate Smart Agriculture and Good Agricultural Practices.
- Closing the finance gap with flexible credit and input financing tailored to youth, aligned with harvest cycles.
- Investing in soil and seed systems to ensure young farmers have affordable testing services and reliable access to quality seeds.
- Rebuilding trust in insurance and contracts by co-designing products with farmers and ensuring agreements are honored.
Kenya’s young farmers are not short on ambition. With the right support, youth, especially young women, can turn agriculture into a pathway to sustainable income, resilience, food security, and dignity.