Ukulima Fund Initiative

1. Ukulima fund sets to address challenges faced by small holder farmers such as inaccessibility to agricultural input, insufficient extension services, insufficient farmer training on smart farming practices and inadequate access to market for produce.
2. The fund offers a solution in form of provision of quality farm inputs on credit to small scale farmers, provision of extension services to enhance farmer learning and proper farm management practices and linkage to produce off-takers that guarantees stable pricing on sale of produce by farmers.
3. The impact from the initiative is increased farmer household income as a result of better yields from produce and stabilized prices. the farmer's beneficiaries and the community gets increased nutritional value from quality produce.The farmer and his beneficiaries have improved quality of life due to more income that allows for better education and access to quality health care services.

Small holder farmers account for 500 million of the world's population, they contribute to 80% of food produced in the world. In Kenya 70% of the population are small holder farmers majorly residing in the rural areas (FAO 2015). According to the ministry of Agriculture(Kenya), there are 4.5 million small holder farmers, 3.5 million of these farmers practice crop farming.

80% of these crop small scale farmers (accounting approximately 2.8 million) can barely afford quality farm inputs and rarely get extension services during crop production. A major factor contributing to this is the budget cutbacks on government agricultural subsidies programs. In addition,agricultural credit facilities seem to leave these farmers out due to low creditworthiness and this is particularly more prevalent among women and youth. As a result, these farmers constitute the base of the pyramid population.

Ukulima fund initiative is a value chain based model that acts as a safety net project for small scale farmers seeking to venture into agribusiness by gaining access to quality input, training on smart farming practices, access to extension services and access to market for produce

What the fund has set out to do is to re-structure how small scale farmers practice farming in order to have more efficiency in the crop production process while receiving support in acquisition of inputs, extension services and sale of produce.

The operation of Ukulima fund is based on three anchor activities that also act as the milestones in the project. These activities are:

• farmer on-boarding, which involves selection of participant farmers, training of farmers and farmer induction to Ukulima fund.
• farm assessment that caters to analysis of the farm as well as soil analysis and formulation of a business plan.
• Crop production monitoring – provision of extension services during the crop production process
• Sale of produce- off-taking produce to manufacturers, restaurants and grocery vendors.

Tukalime ventures the company behind Ukulima fund initiative has researched on small scale farmers by being part of an agricultural credit facilitation project by a micro finance institution. Our involvement was to set the farms to efficiently carry out crop production process through provision of agronomist services. We gained valuable data on the ratios of women to men involved in farming, their age groups, the level of knowledge in farming and the lifestyle of beneficiary farmers on how they execute core activities in farming.

 To better draw an execution plan we set interviewed and held barazas with the farmers to address challenges they have experienced in the farming process and sort local solutions that were inclusive to all members of the community.

Our target market is small scale farmers residing in rural communities. The focus is on women and youth who tend to be disadvantaged in access credit facilities as they are not considered traditional leaders in a family setup. Ukulima Fund will impact yield per farm through provision of inputs on credit. the farmers will get an increase in income and gain knowledge through training that is a part of the initiative catering to de-mystifying agribusiness. 

Ukulima fund initiative focuses on small holder farmers ability to access quality agricultural farm inputs, knowledge of smart farming processes, improvement of yield through intervention by extension officers and sustaining of crop productivity through training on farm care practices.

Additionally the initiative works on a crop value chain model that cater to support of crops from production to sale. it also focuses on end consumer needs by production of crop quantities, varieties and quality recommended by the market.

Ukulima fund initiative is innovative on how it caters to the farmer's needs and caters for sustainable farming activities.Within the industry organizations such as Farm Africa  and Tula who focus on input provision to farmers within crop production and livestock rearing, however, there is no plan to make the farmer self sustaining. Other players are Micro-financing institutions that offer agricultural credit facilities, however, these credit facilities are only available to farmers with a credit history and the loans have a small period for servicing with hefty interest rates.

Ukulima fund accounts for sustainable farming for farmers who can self-finance once they leave the Ukulima fund, additionally the fund does not include extra costs for extension services and no interest on credit inputs.our model allows for the farmer to focus on farming rather than servicing of the loan due to the presence of a gateway to the market during project initiation.

Ukulima Fund is dedicated to improving farming practices, we have applied improved seed technologies that cater to the ever changing weather conditions. Such seeds are hybrid and climate resistance seeds that are known to facilitate growth of crop in arid and semi arid areas. Additionally, we recommend use of fertilizers that do not contribute to high soil acidity levels. As part of the farming practice we employ soil analysis to ensure proper soil health and encourage soil health through out the farming process. On operations of the project, Ukulima fund employs GIS technology to map out farms in order to better plan agricultural resources distribution, conduct soil analysis tests effectively and manage farm inputs applications.

With the change in climatic conditions the use of inputs such as hybrid seeds and fertilizers are important to facilitate production of high yield produce. Production of poor yields by small holder farmers has been linked to inadequate access to quality farm inputs. Most small holder farmers use seed that has been used for close to 10 years therefore the growth rate reduces and the yield achieved is low every successive season. FAO gives an in depth analysis of the relationship between high yield and level of input used. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i1841e.pdf

Soil testing and analysis is still new in Africa, most small holder farmers rarely carry out a soil analysis and this leads to farmers using excessive fertilizers that damages the crops rather than promote growth. An in depth analysis on value of soil testing can be seen here https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/7066683.pdf

GIS Technology has been used in Agriculture to manage crop production and manage farm resources. https://www.irjet.net/archives/V2/i7/IRJET-V2I7168.pdf

Our theory of change aligns the activities with their subsequent output, outcomes,long term outcomes

provision of agricultural inputs will have the output of better participation in agriculture by the youth then an outcome of less rural urban migration by the youth and a long term impact of Reduced unemployment rate and increased youth involvement in Agribusiness.

Training of Proper farm management practices will have the output of Improvement of farm health and farm care practices and an outcome of Increased farmer knowledge on better farming practices.

Extension services will have an output of observation of proper farming activities such as observation of spraying regimes which will lead to an outcome of reduced occurrences of pests and diseases and an impact of increased yield per farm and overall food production

Our solution currently serve 30 farmers through provision of training on how to effectively carry out an agribusiness venture using several value chain processes. we anticipate to serve 100 farmers by end of the first year, however we anticipate creation of 1,000 jobs in the crop production process. the impact anticipated in the next 10 years is approximately 5,000 small holder farmers beneficiaries with creation of 50,000 jobs.

below are our short time and long time goals

Objectives

•To increase youth involvement in agricultural activities by 20% by mid – 2021

•To increase food production quantity per acre by 3 tonnes by mid- 2021

•To increase proper farm management of 65 farmers by mid- 2021

•To facilitate training of 100 farmers by mid - 2021

Goals

•To promote an increase in agricultural involvement by the youth within the next 5 years.

•To effectively disseminate proper farming methodology knowledge in Kenya at the county level in the next seven years.

•To facilitate access to quality farm inputs by a majority small-scale farmers by 2030.

•To facilitate increased access of agricultural financing to women and youth in the next 5 years.

Currently Ukulima Fund Initiative is facing barriers on financial access and technical overview of the initiatives operations. As such finances have resulted into additional barriers such as insufficient technical resources.

Currently ukulima fund needs financial support in order to have the revolving fund work. As the ukulima Fund team we have set up the necessary processes that allow for the initiative to work. However, our visions cannot be realized without access to finances that fuel the system.

Additionally the lack of finances inhibits ukulima fund ability to effectively facilitate the different technologies in play for the initiative to work. Our model of procurement of quality farm inputs depends on the availability of funds as well as the use of GIS software requires subscription fees for optimum results. Other than software, Ukulima Fund aims to increase the technical team (extension officers). These extension officers are an integral part of our model and highly encourage the initiatives success rate. As such with monetary support we would be able to overcome these barriers.

As for technical  overview of the initiatives operations we seek to get insight from MIT Solve on the viability of our project from a third person point of view looking in. As the team behind the innovation we would like to get feedback on our other organizations would view and point out flaws in our system.

Ukulima Fund's barriers are two and one is dependent on the other. The below steps are our efforts in overcoming the above barriers.

To make the initiative work employees in Tukalime make up the ukulima fund project team handling planning, implementation and execution roles. In addition, Tukalime has put efforts to seek financing help and seek partnerships that would ease the operation of the fund. For instance for the last six months Tukalime Ventures has rigorously participated in challenge based competitions in a bid to create awareness of Ukulima Fund initiative and sort funding as well. We are mainly sorting grant funding where 80% of the funding is exclusively dedicated to benefiting small holder farmers. The remaining 20% is used to facilitate operations of the initiative in order to ensure as little strain on the farmer as possible.

As Tukalime acting as the 'mother' for Ukulima Fund Initiative we have set out efforts to encourage partnerships with key shareholders within the ukulima fund model in order to reduce cost and ensure a 'tight ship' in maintaining operations at a low cost and increasing benefit to the beneficiaries.

Ukulima Fund initiative is an innovation from Tukalime Ventures Limited. Tukalime, which means 'Let Us Go Farm' in Swahili; is an agribusiness organization that offers farm management services to individuals, corporates and groups. 

Our drive to form Ukulima Fund came as a streak of expanding our business portfolio in a bid to make an impact in society as well as contribute towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

We aimed for the goals of no poverty through farming for income generation, zero hunger through food production and gender equality with a focus on women.

Currently all staff in Tukalime have a level of effort in Ukulima Fund. The team consists of 15 persons all giving different levels of expertise to make the innovation work. The breakdown for the 15 staff is

14 staff members on full time basis

1 part time staff

Our team is made up of professionals with a wide variety of skills that are vital in Ukulima Fund Initiative implementation.We have spent years in research small holder farmers both experiencing small holder farmer's challenges at a personal level and as a field agent sorting a solution.

Our team is made up of agronomists who have the skills to ensure proper crop production, project leads who ensure proper running of the initiative. In addition, we have members who handle the financial aspects of the project to enable low operation costs and finally the leadership team offers a wealth of experiencing in food consumption having been players in the agricultural inputs manufacture and output consumption companies that produce crop inputs such as pesticides and fungicides as well as fertilizers and using agricultural outputs as raw materials as well.

We currently partner with organizations in different stages within the value chain. We have partnered with crop input manufacturers like Coopers Kenya Ltd. Coopers has over 100 years experience in the agricultural industry, our partnership will have an impact on reduction of cost of production through procurement of inputs at a discounted rate on a contractual bases. In addition we have partnered with companies that offer technological services such as soil analysis for the farms within the project. Partnership with Crop nuts has seen us received soil analysis for farms at a discounted rate.

Ukulima Fund is dedicated to improving lives of our target market. We aim for sustainability among our beneficiaries and fostering continuity in growth. Having said that, we provide the service of convenience, and accessibility to our beneficiaries. 

Ukulima Fund provides extension services to small holder farmers, who in most cases do not have access to such a service or do not have the fund to procure such services. For convenience, we provide agricultural inputs to farmers while having the selection process occur in their vicinity. Ukulima Fund goes to the farmer in order to provide its services.

The success of Ukulima Fund are mainly to encourage income generation and not only one off income generation but a continuous process for the farmers.

We provide these services on a community level, the selected farmers are within one community and within the same vicinity, this in itself promotes easy operations and a wide range of benefits within a community at once.

The services offered by Ukulima Fund Initiative address a need that is experienced by small holder farmers within Africa. These challenges are access to improved high quality farm inputs, access to agronomy or extension services and access to market for produce.

Our application to Solve is our effort towards creating impact. We opted for solve as a community that could help build our idea outside the mindset of our innovation's team. An outside opinion could not only help fill gaps that we as a team may have overlooked, but could facilitate awareness of our mission. 

Additionally, Ukulima Fund's team seeks different avenues on how to execute Ukulima Fund Initiative's goals towards creating impact. We find that with different platforms we can get to seek funding that could support our efforts and better yet make partnerships within those platforms that attribute to greater impact.

Tukalime looks at Ukulima Fund as a jump of point for cohesion in the agricultural industry especially towards value chain agribusiness growth. We intend to partner with at least one or two players in our different value chain channels from financiers, suppliers, quality control,logistics, post harvest services and produce sales.

We are open to partner with organizations that share our need to tackle social problems. In particular, we aim at demystifying agribusiness and MIT open learning would be vital and helping provide vital information on smart farming practices.

We would like to foster farmer education on a large scale and promote occupations within agriculture for Kenyans and Africans as a whole.

Our innovation has a strong focus on women, girls and youth involvement. Ukulima fund intends to cater to 60% selection of women and girls small holder farmers.

These target group was selected as it is anticipated that the benefits from the fund will have a trickle down effect. We intend to used the latest technologically inspired farm inputs to farm women and girls small holder farmers.

We anticipate that these women, girls and youth will gain a sustainable source of income that would encourage an improved quality of life through seeking of better education and access to better healthcare services. The women are also inclined to benefit from reduced over-reliance on their husbands income as well as sustenance of a family unit.