Mango Value Chain Development Project

Action- Supporting Mango Small Holder Farmers through Business Development Services and Market Linkages.

The Mango value chain development project is financed by The Innocent Foundation and implemented by Sote Hub.

Over a period of the next three years, the project will focus on enhancing market access, increasing mango yields, and creating sustainable income opportunities for 1,000 farmers, with a particular emphasis on empowering youth and women.

Project Objectives

• Empower 1,000 mango farmers in Kilifi County to increase mango yields through Good Agriculture Practices.
• Women and youth integration in profitable value chains by ensuring that at least 60% of the beneficiaries are women.
• Facilitate access to better markets for mango farmers' produce, with a focus on the local fruit processors and export markets.
• Strengthen farmers' collective marketing efforts by establishing farmer cooperatives or associations and increased bargaining power.
• Design and implement a blockchain-based outgrower system to establish direct connections between farmers and the market, service providers, off takers and enhance full traceability of the produce back to its source.

Targeted Varieties:Apple varieties (for the local juice market) and Kent, Keith, and Tommy Atkins varieties of mangoes (for the dried export market to the EU, US, and other countries).

The project aims to empower farmers by:

• Mapping and selecting 1000 farmers, 60% being women.
• Supplying farmers with high-quality grafted seedlings.
• Business Development Service and empowering farmers to run their mango farming ventures as profitable enterprises with structures and documentation.
• Training, conversion and certification as organic mango producers.
• Facilitating strategic linkages between farmers and service providers through inclusive roundtable discussions with input suppliers, financial services, crop insurance, extension services, and offtakers.
• Providing farmers with improved market access, information and enhanced bargaining power through the establishment of farmer cooperatives.
• Rollout of outgrower platforms that directly links farmers and service providers and buyers thereby bypassing the middlemen and brokers while enhancing traceability.