“Agro-vet” is painted in block lettering on squat concrete buildings every few kilometers on the bumpy four-hour drive from Nairobi to Meru. The small shops sell feed, fertilizer, livestock products and other crucial inputs for smallholder farmers in the surrounding area. Drive further off the main road into Kenya’s banana, maize, mango, sorghum and millet farming country, though, and the input businesses become few and far between.
It’s there, far from anything that could be mistaken for urban, where Beatrice Nkatha set up shop. In 2009, Nkatha founded Sorghum Pioneer Agencies in the Mukothima marketplace of Tharaka Nithi county, a tooth-rattling 40 kilometer drive from Meru town center.
She supplies quality inputs like seed and fertilizer to farmers, and also buys their harvest, which is stored in one of her 50 aggregation centers in the surrounding area until it is sold in bulk to buyers such as East Africa Breweries. Business at her agro-vet — along with her 40 smaller franchises in the surrounding 35 kilometers — is booming, she told Devex.
About the author
Kelli Rogers@kellierin
Kelli Rogers has worked as an Associate Editor and Southeast Asia Correspondent for Devex, with a particular focus on gender. Prior to that, she reported on social and environmental issues from Nairobi, Kenya. Kelli holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, and has reported from more than 20 countries.