Year Kicks off with Trainings

Year Kicks off with Trainings

The year 2023 has started up well for MARKUP Kenya with trainings ongoing in different counties. One key aspect of the EU-funded MARKUP Kenya is capacity building for various stakeholders, along the select value chains including French beans, snow peas, mangoes, macadamia, groundnuts, passion fruits, chili, herbs and spices.

The program aims at promoting competitiveness and food safety for select Kenyan produce locally, regionally and internationally. Often though, farmers are faced by in access to market due to aspects like pests and diseases which lower the quality of produce. Buyers especially in the export market are usually specific on the quality of produce they buy, thus the need to bridge the knowledge gap on along the production chain.

To fight against diseases and pests as well as production of quality produce, it is important to plant quality seeds or seedlings. Last year, MARKUP Kenya trained 60 tree nursery operators from Machakos, Makueni and Embu on clean planting material.

Similar trainings are ongoing in Embu for Macadamia value chain, Uasin Gishu for passion fruits value chain and Homabay for groundnuts value chain. MARKUP has partnered with the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) in execution of these trainings.

At Namanga, the Kenya-Tanzania border, another trainings on aflatoxins management is ongoing. Aflatoxins management has been a key issue of concern for the MARKUP Kenya program. This is especially because it affects both food safety and market access for produce. Although attention is often given to maize as affected by aflatoxins, other value chains like groundnuts, chili, herbs and spices are affected too.

More trainings and stakeholders’ engagement sessions are lined up especially for the first half of the year. We will keep our readers informed on further activities and the impact they create to communities in Kenya and beyond.

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