Expanding Business Opportunities for Youth in the Fish and Poultry Sectors in Kenya (CultiAF)

This project will build skills and knowledge among young people in Kenya to develop innovative business models that increase their participation in the fisheries and poultry sub-sectors. Youth and agri-business in Kenya While promoting agri-business opportunities and youth employment in agriculture is a priority in Kenya, there is limited evidence of successful business models that benefit youth and scale up results from research. Kenya's growing urbanization has opened opportunities in the fish and poultry sectors for rural and urban youth to generate income. Young people have the potential to bring resourcefulness, technological savvy,, and organizational capacity to the sub-sector. Training, mentoring, support The project will use different training methods (classroom training, practical case methods, field visits, and business simulations) to develop skills among youth to engage in poultry and fish sector businesses. It will build on an existing and highly successful entrepreneurship-training program and adapt the content to address the needs of agri-food entrepreneurs. The project will provide support to a selected group of aspiring young entrepreneurs, linking them to more experienced entrepreneurs for mentoring, innovation support, and business development services. Ideas to innovate and grow Project participants will work with research teams in an ongoing project that is developing insect feeds for fish and poultry. Youth will learn to develop and implement innovative business models for insect, poultry, and fish rearing, and poultry and fish feeds. The project team will select and train aspiring agri-food entrepreneurs with business ideas that have the potential to grow and succeed. The lessons will be relevant to other agriculture and food security projects, especially those that aim to work with youth entrepreneurs. The project brings together the United States International University-Africa based in Kenya, Michigan State University, Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, and Licence to Grow, a private company, to test and promote an entrepreneurship development model that combines training, business innovation, and action research. Project leadership This project is funded through the Cultivate Africa's Future Fund (CultiAF), a joint program of the Australian International Food Security Research Centre of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and IDRC. CultiAF supports research to achieve long-term food security in Eastern and Southern Africa.