Financing female livestock farmers in Kirinyaga, Kenya

Juhudi Kilimo (JK) is a microfinance business that serves Kenya’s rural smallholder farmers, providing financing to help them acquire wealth-generating assets, such as high-yielding dairy cows, poultry, irrigation equipment and farm machinery.

JK began in 2004 as a simple agribusiness initiative within the K-Rep Development Agency.

By 2009, it had grown into an independent for-profit social enterprise with the mission of providing loans, insurance and training to rural smallholder farmers.

Juhudi Kilimo advocates for financial inclusion, which promotes access and the use of high-quality financial services, particularly amongst poor people.

It is acknowledged that women disproportionately face financial access barriers that prevent them from actively participating in the economy and from improving their lives.

Juhudi Kilimo is working towards promoting financial inclusion for women to help achieve gender equity and poverty reduction.

This guided by the JK pledge to maintain the percentage of women among its active borrowers at at-least 40 per cent.

Since Jan 2016, GALVmed has supported Juhudi Kilimo through the provision of technical advice in their farmer advisory programs, increasing visibility and awareness of access to loans to help small holders acquire farm assets and in production of training materials on the value of livestock health.

The objective of these activities was to improve access to finance and livestock health information particularly to women small holder farmers contributing to greater social impact and gender equity . For more information on Juhudi Kilimo’s work, please visit Juhudi Kilimo’s wesbite.

Video filmed and edited by James Karuga for Wren Media.