Meru businesswoman wins Sh50m for innovative idea

Meru businesswoman wins Sh50m for innovative idea

A Meru businesswoman has received a Sh50 million grant for a UK funded organisation for her innovative farming start-up.

Ruth Kinoti, CEO of Shalem Investments, received the windfall for her ‘A Stitch a Time’ project that brings together smallholder farmers in order to market their produce at greater volumes so as to compete in a regional market.

Speaking during the project’s launch ceremony at Kianjae Market, Food Trade ESA Team Leader, Marc Van Uytvanck, re-iterated the company’s support for the project, saying the organisation is proud to be a part of Shalem Investment’s mission of mobilising farmer groups and creating wealth for small-scale farmers.

“We are excited to be part of such an innovative project that targets small-scale farmers and develops strategies to create a unique mechanism of facilitating collective marketing for the farmers and as such increasing the volume of high quality target produce in the regional market,” he said.

The project is expected to focus on giving incentives to small scale farmers to encourage them to clean and grade their products to increase the prices offered for their produce.

Ms Kinoti on her part expressed gratitude for the grant saying it will enable the company to buy post harvest technology to assist farmers to increase the volume of their products in the market.

Currently the company has a network of 9,000 smallholder farmers that it connects to in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda.

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