Samuel Ndung’u
Samuel Kiruku Ndungu is the KOAN Programmes Manager. He is an MSc Agribusiness Management and Trade graduate from Kenyatta University and BA Economics and mathematics from Moi University, Eldoret. He has also attended several professional courses in value chain development, organic agriculture development, entrepreneurship and development of quality management systems in Sweden (Grolink), Tanzania (Match Makers), Israel (CINADCO) US (Washington State University) and Kenya (IMO-Switzerland)
Samuel has 10 years experience in facilitating development of value chains in the organic sector in Kenya, developing markets, development of commercial smallholder organic projects, providing market linkages for smallholder organic producers to commercial partners, advising SME’s in organic product design and development, facilitating certification development for smallholder farmers projects in organic, fair-trade, HACCP, Sustainable Wild Harvest and UTZ Kapeh, providing advisory to stakeholder in organic sector in enterprise selection, conducting feasibility studies, and business planning of organic and natural products, technical advisory in enterprise risk assessment, ICS development and Pre-certification advisory.
He has in the past (2004-2012) participated in development of bee products value chains, fish value chains, honey, vegetables, tea, herbs, spices, macadamia nuts, mushroom and Coffee. This has involved partnering with local and international organizations such as world vision, SNV-Ethiopia, SOS Sahel and Business Services Market Development Programme, Ethiopia, Macadamia fans, Kenya. He has an experience of working in Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Ivory Coast and Tanzania.
Samuel participated as lead consultant in the baseline, annual monitoring and post evaluation of Tensenses Africa and Desert Edge in the area of social economic and impact assessment. In 2014, he participated in conducting baseline study for status of regional organic market in East Africa, a consumer survey for organic products in Nairobi and a market study for organic products in Nairobi.
Samuel is currently participating as steering committee member in the ongoing long-term Research Project on the comparison between organic and conventional agriculture in the tropics lead by ICIPE with participation from Kenyatta University, TSBF, and KARI Thika. He is also a member of Agri benchmark network, organic portfolio, which is a network of agriculture economists involved in collating information on agriculture, analyzing it for evaluating competitiveness of agro enterprises across countries.
