An 'enlightened' farmer from Kenya is among the winners of the 'Gian Marco Moratti Award' 2024, the prize conceived by the E4Impact Foundation to highlight and help those companies capable of offering an effective entrepreneurial response to a situation that negatively affects the African community, and particularly dedicated to the best business solutions aimed at bridging one or more gaps - social, cultural, economic, environmental.
Among the three winners, who will receive a cash prize, is Samuel Munguti, creator and president of Shamba Pride, a Kenyan reality in Makueni County that operates in the agribusiness sector.

Shamba Pride distributes seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, feed and equipment for agriculture and animal husbandry. Samuel also devised a digital platform, 'DigiShop Market', through which farmers can receive information and connect with other agricultural service providers in the community, with the aim of ensuring increased production and mitigating the effects of climate change.
Thanks to this insight, in just a few years Samuel has reached 15 thousand farmers and more than 400 shops offer its solutions.
Agriculture is a key factor in Kenya's economy, explain E4Impact. The industry constitutes 26% of the gross domestic product (GDP), employs more than 40% of the total population (especially women and youth) and more than 70% of Kenya's rural population. Yet, smallholders in Kenya continue to face various challenges, such as limited access to the right tools needed to make their farms successful, inadequate facilities, food insecurity caused by climate change, and scarce and poorly distributed resources and rainfall.
With his enterprise Samuel ensures an increase in sustainable agricultural production, mitigating the effects of climate change.
Munguti himself tells his story.

"I discovered my passion for agriculture when I graduated from university in 2016 with a master's degree in marketing. I then took my savings, about $3,000, and rented farmland with the intention of joining my fellow villagers, 70 per cent of whom made a living from farming. I soon learnt, however, that that way of life was really unpredictable. To give an example: I planted tomatoes and watermelons, but the tomato seeds did not germinate, and although I still managed to grow a few watermelons, it was not enough to compensate for the investment. My first attempt at farming was, in many ways, a great failure. Yet, out of that failure, the idea of Shamba Pride was born. My suspicion was that the seeds had been sold to me already 'expired' or that the agrochemicals used in the cultivation were harmful, or both. On reflection I thought that if this had happened to me, it was very likely that it was also happening to other small farmers, and there are millions of them in Kenya'.

So, to provide more transparency for farmers, Samuel developed Shamba Pride, a platform that connects them via the web, USSD codes and mobile apps with verified and trusted suppliers in rural Kenya.
"The traditional agricultural system in Africa has failed to break down the barriers caused by poverty and low productivity in farming communities, which can be achieved by harnessing technology," Samuel explains. "Local entrepreneurs can transform and empower themselves to create a rural agricultural trading ecosystem, offering local farmers a high-level professional selling experience. Shamba Pride believes that through the creation of an efficient and reliable ecosystem in this billion-dollar sub-Saharan industry, we can revolutionise rural agricultural commerce'.

(Photo: E4Impact)