June 12, 2018 KILIFI, Kenya

The Visegrad Group (V4) countries – Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland – together with the European Union are today launching a major project to help thousands of Kenyan farmers. This first-ever joint international development project of the V4 will also facilitate job-creation across three coastal counties of Lamu, Kilifi and Kwale, in line with the V4 countries' ‘Global Visegrad’ priority.

The "Enhancement of livelihoods in the Kenyan Coastal Region by supporting organic and fair trade certification of smallholders" project is co-funded by the EU, and its main objective is to support the planting a million cashew and sesame nut trees..

“This support is channeled towards food security, manufacturing and job creation, which are fully in compliance of the President Uhuru Kenyatta's Big Four key pillars,” said the V4 Ambassadors in a common statement. "It aims to deliver effective solutions through farmer trainings - to establish a system for certifying organic and fair trade supply chains, which should boost household incomes for smallholder farmers. It also has a positive environmental impact through tree plantation in semi-arid areas. This project will make farming a more attractive career option for young people."

The initiative is being implemented by Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation (Slovak Aid) together with V4 partner organizations that will train the farmers , as well as providing their valuable expertise in respective fields.

The key Kenyan partner organizations - Ten Senses Africa (TSA) and Farm Africa - will help to establish three cashew seedling nurseries, as well as working on fair trade and organic certification and on agricultural value chains development. The TSA will buy the production directly from farmers and then process it in Kilifi region: this will in turn encourage small-scale farmers to implement good tree husbandry practices.

The project will also support:

• Introduction of new agricultural technologies and management methods.
• Farmer training in distribution of seedlings and seeds of improved varieties of cashew and sesame, postharvest storage of food crops, and nutrition behavior.
• Establishment of linkages with other actors of the value chain, e.g. service providers, buyers/processors such as TSA, financial institutions for credit.
• Establishment of community self-help groups, and trainings on group dynamics, collective management, conflict prevention and resolution.
• Establishment and strengthening of 20 village savings-and-loan associations.
• Support for 1,000 young people and women (members of self-help groups) to start businesses within the cashew and sesame value chains (i.e. tree pruning, biological spraying).