For Godfrey Mwaisaka, leaving the corporate world in Nairobi and returning to his roots in Mwatate, Taita Taveta County, was more than a career change. It was a dream he had carried for years - to own land, grow crops and build an agricultural business that would create opportunities back home.
In 2024, he finally took the plunge. He used his savings to buy 37 acres of land, believing the biggest hurdle to becoming an agripreneur had been overcome. It was only the beginning. After paying for the land, Mwaisaka was left with little capital to develop it. The farm was his, but he did not have enough money to put it into production.
His experience captures one of the biggest challenges facing young entrepreneurs in Kenya: owning a business idea does not necessarily mean having the financial muscle to turn it into a sustainable enterprise. For Mwaisaka, the problem became particularly frustrating when he approached banks for working capital. The financing products available to him did not match the realities of farming. Agriculture, he explains, requires patience because income does not come every month.
Godfrey Mwaisaka, an advocate, left his job in Nairobi to start Sora Farms, an agribusiness that focuses on the production of okra, passion, pumpkin and poultry in Mwatate, Taita Taveta.
Photo credit: Pool
“Agriculture is cyclical. For the okra we wanted to start with, you need to give it 45 days before hitting the market, but the bank wants you to start depositing something within the first month,” he says.
The mismatch forced him to rethink his plans. Instead of starting with the crops he had intended to grow, he opted for yellow beans, which required relatively little capital. In January 2025, he planted them on five acres, but just as he was preparing to harvest, elephants from the neighbouring national park and local conservancies invaded the farm and destroyed the crop. He tried again, this time planting green grams. The elephants returned.
Two failed harvests left Mwaisaka with an even bigger problem: he needed money to protect the farm before he could meaningfully expand production. Eventually, he took a bank loan and used the money to construct a solar-powered fence. The financing, however, was only enough to protect five acres. Of his 37 acres, 32 remained largely underutilised. Today, Mwaisaka can only grow basic fodder on the unfenced portion, harvesting it occasionally for hay.
“Ideally, that is not optimum production,” he says.
His ambitions are much bigger. He wants to venture into passion fruit, okra, pumpkins and poultry farming, but inadequate financing has kept those plans on hold.
Yvonne Kimathi is the founder of Voellada Ventures, an agribusiness that specialises in the production of honey and dried fruit products.
Photo credit: Pool
Mwaisaka is not alone. For Yvonne Kimathi, entrepreneurship began after an unexpected disruption to her career. She was working for an international organisation in Amsterdam when the Covid-19 pandemic struck. After losing her job, she returned home and found herself caring for her sick mother. It was during this period that a childhood memory became the foundation of a business. Yvonne remembered traditional honey remedies shared by her grandmother. She spent two years developing a lemon-ginger medicinal honey blend, popularly referred to as “dawa”.
That experiment eventually grew into Voellada Ventures, an agri-processing business operating between Nairobi and Meru. Today, her brands, Bee Natural, which specialises in raw and infused honeys, and Fiti Fruity, turns surplus mangoes, pineapples and bananas into preservative-free snacks. The business helps reduce food waste while creating markets for rural farmers. But building the business has been far more difficult than developing the idea. Yvonne started with seven kilogrammes of honey. As demand grew, however, she needed machinery, a larger production facility and working capital. That was when she encountered another familiar barrier.
“It was difficult to get loans since lenders were asking for collateral which I did not have, as I was young and did not have property under my name,” she says.
Her experience points to a paradox confronting many young business owners. Young people are encouraged to create businesses, employ others and contribute to the economy yet many are starting their enterprises at a stage in life when no one will lend them capital.
For a bank operating within a conventional lending model, however, a promising business idea is often not enough, and for young people without family property to offer as security, the situation can become a vicious cycle. They need money to acquire assets, but lenders want assets before providing money. Without financing, a young entrepreneur may remain trapped in a small-scale operation, unable to purchase machinery, expand premises, hire workers, develop new products or enter larger markets.
Another challenge is the structure of the loans available to young businesses. Many conventional loans require monthly repayments, but that may only work for a salaried employee who receives a predictable income every month.
According to Joel Kinyua, Representative for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), financing must be accompanied by skills, mentorship and institutional support.
“Agriculture remains the most viable pathway for youth employment in Kenya and across the African continent, yet youth participation in agribusiness remains constrained by several factors, key among them being inadequate access to financing,” Kinyua says.
Speaking on August 10 at the Youth Agripreneurship Policy and Partnerships Dialogue Forum in Nairobi, Kinyua pointed to the FAO's Personal Initiative Agripreneurship (PI-Ag) training curriculum as one of the interventions that can help young entrepreneurs become better prepared for formal financing.
The programme was piloted by the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) in Kakamega, Trans Nzoia, Nyandarua, Kajiado, Meru and Taita Taveta counties between January 2025 and May 2026.
“...this partnership bridges the gap between grassroots operations and formal capital providers, transforming ‘unbankable’ young smallholders into investment-ready credit prospects,” he says.
Benedict Atavachi, Acting CEO of YEDF, says Kenya needs to rethink how it finances young entrepreneurs. He argues that the country should move away from outdated collateral-based models towards alternative risk assessment and technology-driven financing.
“Without these targeted structural adjustments, Kenya's most vital economic sector risks leaving its brightest, tech-driven generation entirely behind,” he says.
That shift could involve recognising alternative forms of evidence when assessing a business. For example, transaction histories, customer payments, business performance and digital records.
It could also mean developing financial products that reflect the realities of different businesses.
