Year-round, affordable, nutritious dried African Indigenous Vegetables

About the partnership

Fresh Produce

Kenya

This partnership aims to reduce the post-harvest losses of African Indigenous Vegetables (i.e. Amaranth, Night shade, pumpkin leaves and spinach), during the high production season, by drying the vegetables and marketing off the main production season. Drying extends the shelf-life of the vegetables from 7 days to 12 months. This makes the vegetables available throughout the year, at relatively stable prices, for low income (BoP) consumers in rural areas. The reduction of post-harvest losses will also guarantee improved incomes to smallholder farmers. In addition, the year-round processing of the vegetables will ensure permanent jobs (currently all the jobs are seasonal at the factory which disrupts the incomes of the rural women employed at the factory).

About the business champion

Sweet & Dried is a young-female led agro-processing enterprise that specializes in processing of fruits, vegetables, and grains into dried products and assorted flours. Based in Tharaka-Nithi county, it works with over 1,200 smallholder farmers (60% women) in the upper and lower eastern parts of Kenya. Current products include dried mangoes, dried ripe bananas, composite porridge flour (pearl millet, sorghum, ripe banana, and carrot), dried amaranth seeds, pumpkin flour, and an assortment of dried African Indigenous Vegetables. It has also carried out trials on dried kales/spinach/cabbage mix and dried amaranth leaves which are planned for commercialization following certification by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KeBS).

Key interventions

Serving BoP consumers with affordable and quality dried African Indigenous Vegetables.

Supporting the smallholder farmers to adopt climate smart agriculture practices on their farms to increase their production & incomes.

Facilitate access to working capital for Sweet n Dried Ltd and financial services to the small holder farmers.

5,000 farmers (3,000 women & 750 young male) targeted & supported

5 micro-small and medium enterprises involved

8 producer organizations involved

€ 649,000 private sector co-investment

10,000 BoP consumers with improved access to nutritious food

Get in touch

Curious about this partnership? Get in touch with the partnership facilitator.

E-mail Bernard Ndolo

Partnership Facilitator

	Bernard Ndolo
	Bndolo@2scale.org

Project partners

Dryland Seeds Company (DSL)

Emerging Kenyan private seed company working together with partner organizations to develop and commercialize climate smart seeds

County government of Tharaka Nithi

Department of agriculture which provides government extension services

Koppert Biological Systems

Produces sustainable cultivation solutions for food crops and ornamental plants

Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO)

KALRO is a corporate body created under the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Act of 2013 to establish suitable legal and institutional framework for coordination of agricultural research in Kenya