Pig stalls instead of city lights?
Naomi also opened her eyes to a career in agriculture and says coming back home was the best decision she ever made.
Many young people like Naomi had given up on agriculture and their hometowns and thought migration was their only chance at success. The FAO project in Kiambu is helping youth tap into the vast opportunities that agriculture offers. ©FAO/Luis Tato
“Every parent’s dream is to see his or her child to be successful,” but who says that this cannot happen in agriculture? This is the message that Hilda, a 25-year-old single mother from Kiambu County in Kenya, wants to share with people her age.
Hilda has a degree in Business Administration, but instead of trying to get a 9-to-5 job in the city like many young women and men from her rural community, she decided to follow a different path and apply her hard-earned knowledge to the agricultural sector.
“The perception is that agriculture is for the uneducated people, […] but it is important to be an educated farmer because you cannot sit there and wait for losses. You need to see things coming,” Hilda says.
In Kenya, the unemployment rate is very high, especially among rural and female youth groups. In 2017, 22 percent of Kenyans aged 15 to 24 were unemployed. This situation compels many young people to migrate from rural to urban areas to earn a living. And yet, Kiambu — thanks to its proximity to the country’s capital, Nairobi — has a vibrant agricultural sector with great potential for agri-business opportunities.
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