My Mission is… to restore the sovereignty of smallholder farmers in the food and agricultural systems of developing economies. I am invested in exploring how emerging technologies such as AI can empower smallholder farmers to bolster the efforts towards making sub-Saharan Africa food secure.
By Jeff Kang’acha
AGE: 27
MY BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT SO FAR HAS BEEN… Co-developing a memorandum on climate finance with more than 1,000,000 smallholder farmers in Kenya, to inform the ministry of finance and economic planning on regenerative agriculture as an investment priority for smallholder farmers. I am now building on this initiative to develop a stealth enterprise that is leveraging nature-based solutions and ecosystem services to develop an alternative credit-scoring model that will democratize financial services and unlock the access to capital for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE? The idea that being young equates to lacking experience. With the median age of a Kenyan farmer currently at 61, my pursuit of a career in agriculture is met with a lot of hesitation despite my value from building an agri-tech startup ground-up as a teenager and curating an apprenticeship program on climate smart agriculture. This reality inspires my resolve to champion how we can decenter age from our conversations to build our food and agricultural systems as intergenerational space.
ONE THING YOU’D LIKE TO CHANGE PEOPLE’S MINDS ABOUT: The power within the African continent and our potential as a global food basket. For a long time the status quo has presented Africa and its countries as “Third World” and “Developing.” “Until the lions tell their story, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.” I hope to inspire more young Africans to tell the stories of the beauty and greatness of our continent.
A GREAT PIECE OF ADVICE? “You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness”—Thomas Sankara. Our pursuit of systemic change as young innovators, activists, and changemakers is radical. Sankara invites us to be bold and unconventional.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU MOST ABOUT YOUR GENERATION? In the words of Steve Jobs, the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. My generation is “crazy enough” to think we can change the world. We endeavor to be catalysts. To leave things better than we find them. Particularly, I am inspired by how the youth-led protests in my home country, Kenya, have sparked a paradigm shift in how our societies can hold governments accountable.
BIGGEST OBSTACLE FACING YOUR GENERATION: The looming threat of climate change. Even as we strive to create systemic change and shared sense of prosperity, we have no spare planet Earth on which we can live and thrive!
ONE WAY TO HELP: Not only give us a seat at decision-making tables, but the power to make substantive decisions at the table.
YOU CAN FIND JEFF AT… @jeff_kangacha on Instagram.
From Mission’s Youth Issue, Youth Series. Guest edited by Nile Rodgers and Nancy Hunt, co-founders of We Are Family Foundation. Image courtesy of Jeff Kang’acha.
