Drought-tolerant crops empower youth in Tharaka Nithi

Through the DTCs 4 Youth Jobs Creation Project, individuals like Doris Makena, Rachel Makena, and Joel Kithetu have transformed their lives through agribusiness. Doris, once fully dependent on her husband, earned KES 40,800 from her first sorghum harvest in 2024, and she has since expanded her efforts by leasing two more one-acre plots that she targets to reap at least Sh145,000 in the current and her second season.  Rachel, previously a subsistence farmer, became an agripreneur and started cultivating sorghum, pearl millet, and green grams. She used her profits to buy a freezer, start a milk retail business, and buy a plot of land worth KES 80,000, which she plans on developing. Meanwhile, Joel, a procurement graduate who had nearly given up on building his dream home, credits the project for equipping him with certified seeds and training that turned his struggling one-acre farm into a thriving venture, eventually enabling him to build a three-bedroom house.

Read more about their journeys here in The Star newspaper.