Agribusiness in Kiambu County

Kiambu County is among the largest Counties in Kenya occupying 2,543 square kilometers with the total population standing at 1,623,282. This is one of the five counties in Kenya that has more than50 percent of its population living in urban areas.

Kiambu County is predominantly rural but in the recent past, its urban residence is expanding as a result of the expansion of Nairobi. This is also a home to many small and medium sized urban centers, making the County one of the most urbanized counties after Nairobi.

The main economic activity in Kiambu County include farming, food processing, manufacturing especially in leather, mining, textile, moto vehicle assembling as well as general trade. The sector that has a great potential in investing in is the agricultural sector. This sector includes horticulture, dairy and fish farming that present opportunities for Kiambu County to grow these sectors. This sector is estimated to be employing 100,000 people and generates 100 billion shillings in export every year.

Many of the food crops that feed Nairobi County come from Kiambu County. One, therefore, is prone to make a lot of money by selling food crops as well as fruits from Kiambu to Nairobi. It is not a must for one to own land in Kiambu in order to run the agribusiness. There are tracks of land that are available for leasing over a period of time and they will always give good returns.

One can invest in value addition of agricultural produce such as tea, coffee, fish, bananas, Irish potatoes, pears, vegetables, flowers as well as dairy for export to various nontraditional regional and global destination including the East African region as well as to other counties.

What are some of the challenges that an investor in the sector might face?

There is lack of access to credit due to lack of acceptable collateral such as land title deeds and high interest rates, coupled with stringent requirements by financial institutions. The county has few financial institutions that offer agricultural loans and majority of farmers cannot access high interest rates on loans offered by the few microfinance institutions in the county.

Politics of Kiambu County

The County is currently stable though in the recent pas there has been political warm blood between the current governor William Kabogo and Ferdinand Waititu who is eying the gubernatorial position in 2017. This has always created heated debates between the two in political meetings in what is seen as early campaigns.

What is in the offing for the investor?

Kiambu County is growing and will soon catch up with Nairobi. This is a county that is worthy investing in and agriculture is the way to go.