By: John Kariuki
Juhudi Kilimo Company is a Kenyan microfinance organisation with a specific mission: to provide working capital and agricultural asset loans for specific agricultural assets that offer immediate and sustainable income for farmers. This is an improvement to the traditional microfinance model, which primarily provide loans for working capital to informal businesses. To date, Juhudi Kilimo serves farmers in 33 counties through 52 branches.
It currently has over 65,000 active smallholder farmers and micro-entrepreneurs on its loan book, of which an impressive 65% are women. A rough calculation of the families of these loan-holders translates to approximately 160,000 rural people benefitting either directly or indirectly from Juhudi Kilimo loans.
David Njiru is the Chief Business Officer at Juhudi Kilimo and in an interview he said:
“We are open to both livestock and crop farmers where we are glad to extend affordable credit to them. This is because we understand that Agriculture is the backbone of the economy.”
Mr Njiru also thanked the Government for the subsidies on fertilizer thereby enabling farmers to access the commodity.
“One of the greatest stumbling blocks to farmers in the country today is the high cost of farm inputs but we are happy that the government has continued with the fertilizer subsidy. This is a step in the right direction,” he noted
He at the same time called for farmers to consider crop insurance at a time when agriculture is faced with many threats chiefly unpredictable rainfall patterns exercabated by the effects of climate change.
Mount Kenya Times E-paper takes this opportunity to wish Juhudi Kilimo all the best
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