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BIOFACH 2023 – ORGANIC KENYA

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“Connecting Kenyan Organic Producers to the World: Introducing Organic Kenya”

As members of the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN), we are excited to announce the launch of Organic Kenya – a new initiative that connects Kenyan organic producers to international buyers.

Organic Kenya is a group of fairtrade and EU organic certified companies, including Batian Nuts Limited, Olivado EPZ Limited, Zuri Organics Limited, Fine Aromas of Kenya Limited, and Wondernut Kenya Limited.

Our mission is to provide linkages between organic exporting companies in Kenya and international buyers, while also providing opportunities for our member companies to exhibit their products under the Organic Kenya brand.

We understand the challenges that come with exporting organic products, which is why we also offer matchmaking and due diligence services to ensure that our clients are getting the best products at the best prices. We are committed to building a strong reputation for Kenyan organic products in the global market.

As part of KOAN, we are located along Thika Road, CPA Centre Block A Room 12B, and we welcome all of our members to come and learn more about Organic Kenya and how it can benefit your business. We are also excited to announce that we will be exhibiting at Biofach 2023 (find us at hall 3A stand 320), the world’s leading trade fair for organic food, and invite all of our members to visit our stand and learn more about our products and services.

By joining Organic Kenya, our members will have access to a wider market and better prices for their products. Let us connect you to the best the world has to offer.

If you’re interested in becoming a member of Organic Kenya or want to learn more about our services, please contact us at info@koan.co.ke or visit our website at koan.co.ke/organic-kenya

We look forward to working with you and promoting the growth of the organic industry in Kenya.

KOAN BIOFACH 2023 EXPORTER PACKAGE

 

Organic Awareness Creation through Social Media in Kenya

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Title: Organic Awareness Creation through Social Media in Kenya

Overall Goal: To create demand for organic local produce in Kenya, with the goal of stimulating a healthier diet and promoting environmentally friendly and income-enhancing agricultural production in rural areas.

Implementing Partners: The project is being implemented by FiBL Switzerland in collaboration with Kenyan partners  the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN) and WOWZI.

Project Period: 2.5 years, from March 2021 to September 2023.

Synergies with existing projects: The proposed activities build on ongoing projects to strengthen organic farmers’ access to markets within the PMCA & GIZ Knowledge Hub projects, as well as the Bachmann Digitalization Pilot project that digitizes training materials in East Africa.

Targeted Outcomes:

Outcome 1 – Awareness creation campaign using Influencer Marketing

  • 30 Kenyan youths are selected and trained to upgrade their influencer profile with organic content
  • 2-3 major influencers are hired to run a campaign for healthy, organic food in the context of Nairobi.

Outcome 2 – Development of a consumer-oriented Organic Information Platform

  • 1 Organic web portal created to serve as the main reference portal for all Kenya Organic Stakeholders (Farmers, Traders, Consumers & Supporting Actors) providing trustworthy information on this topic
  • 1 organic commodities trading platform to facilitate B2B and B2C transactions between farmers, traders and consumers to improve trading and access of organic food.

Accelerating Organic Market Development in Kenya Project

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Title: Accelerating Organic Market Development in Kenya Project

Period: 2022-2024

Objective: The main objective of this project is to support the development of strong and inclusive organic businesses and value chains in Kenya, targeting both the domestic and export market, while also improving the capacity of the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN) as a professional, business-oriented organization that offers high-quality services to its members, other sector actors, and the public.

Target Beneficiaries:

  • Direct: 2000 farmers, 100 traders and exporters, 10 input suppliers, 3 certification bodies, and 5 NGOs and CBOs
  • Indirect: 20,000 consumers, 4 county governments, and 3 research and training institutions.

Results:

  • The project aims to set up and improve groups certified under the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS), resulting in improved market access for farmers through partnerships with actors along the value chain (processors, retailers, etc.) via the Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA).
  • It aims to increase the number of business opportunities linking farmers with retailers and processors.
  • Positioning the Kilimohai organic standard in Kenya, and making it widely used by retailers, to make farmers’ investments in becoming Kilimohai certified, worth it.
  • The project seeks to support KOAN in becoming well-positioned to drive the further development of the organic market, with skilled staff, a lean and business-oriented structure and procedures.

Coverage: The project will cover four counties in Kenya, including Kiambu County, Kirinyaga County, Murang’a County, and Machakos County, with a total target of 400 farmers in each county.

Expected outcome :

  • Outcome 1: Strong inclusive organic businesses and value chains targeting both the domestic and export market.
  • Outcome 2: Improved capacity of KOAN as a business-oriented organization offering high quality services to members, other sector actors, and the public.

4TH ORGANIC BUSINESS PLANNING WORKSHOP 2022

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Date : Thursday 24th November 2022

Venue : Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Cultural Studies  (University of Nairobi)

Time : 9.00am – 1.00pm

Goal : Growing the Organic Industry through collaboration and innovation among value chain actors

Objective:

  • To identify interesting areas for organic business innovation and collaboration
  • To provide opportunity for improved networking among organic value chain actors in Kenya.
  • To create awareness about organic business support scheme.

Participants: Organic sector traders, retailers, processors, farmer groups, logistic partners and interested parties.

Summary

Whereas Organic farming is seen as an alternative to conventional farming which has negative attendant impacts on the environment, a lot of opportunities exist in Kenya’s organic sector both local and export markets. KOAN is committed to working with organic stakeholders to take advantage of the prevailing business opportunities as well as spur innovation for developing new ones.

The participatory market chain approach (PMCA) methodology has been piloted successfully in Kenya from 2020-2022. The Pilot reaffirmed the philosophy of collaboration over competition and several opportunities were identified and continue to be pursued. It is with this in mind that we invite you to the PMCA Phase 1 main event.

This event is dubbed as the 4TH ORGANIC BUSINESS PLANNING WORKSHOP 2022, will bring together actors (Retailers, Traders, Processors, Farmer Groups and others) in the sector with the goal of presenting interesting ideas that have been gathered, through market research by KOAN. It is our goal to see Functional Thematic Groups (TG) emerge which will engage and identify interesting business opportunities for joint exploration.

KOAN

ORGANIC BUSINESS SUMMIT: DEVELOPING PARTNERSHIPS FOR NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

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DATE: 24 MARCH 2022

TIME: 8:30 AM- 1.00PM

EVENT TYPE: Invite Only

ORGANIZERS : KOAN , KALRO , FIBL,  OACK

The Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN) together with its partners will be hosting a first of kind organic industry business event on Thursday, 24th March 2022 (9.00am) at the SportsView Hotel Kasarani and Zoom platform (use this link) . The Organic industry is the fastest growing subsector in agriculture globally, trading billions of dollars’ worth of products annually. This global trend is gaining pace in Kenya with people seeking healthy food amidst the Covid19 pandemic and food safety lapses in local food supply come to light. A burgeoning middleclass is fast becoming picky with food and export markets are becoming increasingly critical on sustainability, carbon emissions and pesticide residues.

The Kenya Organic Agriculture Network has been an industry leader making meaningful business linkages within the organic space. KOAN has assisted notable companies with strategic and much needed advisory and farmer linkage services that have led to millions of dollars’ worth of trade both locally and for export to date. In a bid to rapidly expand the organic space, KOAN has partnered up with the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Africrops Limited, the Organic Agriculture Centre of Kenya (OACK) among other organizations to foster organic market development by focusing on both the domestic and export market.

The Organic Business Workshop is an invite only event to present identified and explored organic business opportunities for the local and export market, focusing on organic products originating from Murang’a County. There will be opportunity to discuss and integrate new partners into the identified pathways within three main Strategic Business Groups;

I. Organic Vegetables and Fruits for Local Market,

II. Organic Herbs and Spices and lastly

III. Organic Fruits for Export.

We are looking forward to your engagement and participation in the workshop. Meanwhile, please take the time to register on the provided link,

https://forms.gle/2sqJyUFU3MYELiWNA

Latest date to sign up for the event is 23rd March 2022.

Resources

PMCA PHASE 1 REPORT

Project Report 2019_Kenya PMCA Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship Capacity on Market Linkage for Organic Smallholder Farmers x

 

Organic Herbs and Spices Business Group

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Organic Vegetables and Fruits for Local Market Business Group

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Organic Fruits For Export Business Group

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The Organic Business Summit -Post Event Notes

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Accessing markets and building viable consumer bases are a major challenge for all business ventures and the Organic Agriculture Industry is no exception to such realities. It has been our experience that to have any worthwhile business relationship, it is pertinent that all value chain actors from farmers, traders, processors and retailers (not forgetting supporting actors such as certifiers, government and non-governmental actors, inputs suppliers among others) work collaboratively. Collaboration fosters trust and allows players to identify, explore and actualize business opportunities.

The Business Summit was able to outline some areas of interest and to present compelling arguments of why the Organic Agriculture Sector in Kenya is ripe for the picking.

With such a rich pool of stakeholders represented we hope that the event will ignite the spark of collaboration among Organic Agriculture Sector players.

From the Summit Three Thematic areas of interest were identified for collaborative pursuit;

  1. Organic Vegetables and Fruits for Local Market
  2. Organic Fruit for Export
  3. Organic Herbs and Spices

The Business Summit was the just a 1st Step in many to, discussions in the various thematic groups have already commenced with many actors already moving forward in identifying opportunities.

In order to coordinate these collaborations WhatsApp groups have been set up based on the Thematic Groups(TG).

The groups are being coordinated as follows;

  Thematic Group Facilitator
1 Organic Vegetables and Fruits for Local Market Martin Njoroge
2 Organic Fruit for Export Clement Adongo

 

 

Lawrence Gitonga
3 Organic Herbs and Spices Emma Njoki

One has to be an interested party to participate in any of the above group and must offer some value to the discussions being held. The main purpose of the groups is to explore business opportunities that must Benefit Farmers in Murang’a County.

Contact Martin Njoroge – 0725 295 437 for more information.

If you missed the summit

HERE ARE

  1. THE MINUTES
  2. THE PRESENTATIONS

 

 

 

 

Kikuyu Organic Farmer’s Market -Mugumo Hotel Kikuyu

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Residents of Kikuyu, Ndenderu, Sigona all the way to Limuru, you can now get ready access to Organic Food from the Kikuyu Organic Farmers market. The farmers are residents of Ondiri and Regen area where if you talk to them nicely will be able to organise basket deliveries and other value adds.

VENUE : MUGUMO PARK KIKUYU TOWN

DATE: 12TH DEC 2020 (INAUGURAL LAUNCH)

TIME: 9.00AM-1.00PM

Hosted by Ondiri Organic Farmers Group.