Abstract:
This report offers a detailed case study
of an initiative that seeks to use Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs) to attract
Kenyan youth to agriculture. Agriculture in
Kenya has not been looked at as a career prospect
by the Kenyan youth, who consider it as a
backward activity best left to the unfortunate; to
them it is as a last-resort venture. There is also a
general lack of efforts to encourage Kenyan youth
to embrace agriculture and farming activities as a
profitable venture, especially using the youth’s
existing attraction to using ICTs, and targeting
their innovative capabilities and proclivity for
entrepreneurship. This study, carried out between
20th and 22nd May, 2014 focuses on one such effort,
the Gakawa Secondary School ‘e-Gardens’ project
in Nyeri County, Kenya, funded by Sustainable
Environment and Agriculture Network
International (SEANET), a Kenyan NonGovernmental Organization (N.G.O.). The study
examined ICTs in use at the study site, impact and
effectiveness of this usage, challenges faced by the
study population and possible interventions to
these challenges. A survey research design was
adopted for the study, relying on questionnaires,
oral interviews and site visits as data collection
tools. The results show that the e-Gardens model is
a good example of an innovative approach to
getting youth into agriculture. There is minimal
literature available for this topic as it is a
relatively new approach and largely experimental
in Kenya and Africa in general, and more studies
need to be conducted in other locations.
This paper is limited by its descriptive and not
predictive nature, and is not based on a
statistically representative sample of the
population.
