Growing the Future | YPARD KENYA FARMERS’ FESTIVAL

In 2024, YPARD Kenya hosted its inaugural Farmers’ Festival in partnership with local farmer-basedorganizations and the County Government of Kisumu. The success of this inaugural convening demonstrated the strong demand for youth centred agricultural spaces that bridge skills, innovation, and community action.

Building on this momentum, YPARD Kenya, in collaboration with Obwombe Enterprises and with support from diverse stakeholders, is organizing the 2026 Farmers’ Festival, targeting over 500 participants on 13th March 2026 in Mamboleo (Opp. Slaughter House) in Kisumu County.

The Farmers’ Festival will feature a mix of interactive and experiential activities including

- a keynote address

- panel discussions

- expert talks and breakout sessions

- exhibitions and demonstrations

- entertainment and cultural performances

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About the Festival

Kisumu County presents a strategic and high-impact location for the Festival. While the region faces soil degradation, climate variability, and declining farm productivity, it hosts vibrant youth groups, farmer cooperatives, and youth and women-led agribusiness initiatives committed to tackling these challenges. Furthermore, it has significant presence of learning institutions (e.g., schools, universities, TVETs) that provides strong student engagement opportunities, and an impactful county government that has shown commitment to food security, climateaction, and youth empowerment programs.

The Festival aims to create a dynamic ecosystem of students, young farmers, innovators, researchers, agriSMEs, development partners, and community actors across Kisumu County and beyond. It seeks to establish an inclusive, action-oriented platform that facilitates the exchange of knowledge, technologies,and lived experiences among key stakeholders including: Youth and student groups, Farmer-based organizations, Universities and research institutions, County and national government actors, and Private sector agribusinesses.

A central focus of the Festival is the creation of a robust youth innovation and learning ecosystem designed to catalyze capacity development, technology adoption, enterprise growth, and climate resilient agriculture. This ecosystem approach directly informs the choice of the festival theme, “Growing the Future: Soil Health for Sustainable Food Systems, Agroecology & AI/Data-Driven Innovation for Youth and Community Empowerment.” The theme recognizes that young farmers and agripreneurs arenavigating complex, interlinked challenges including climate change, soil degradation, biodiversity loss,and limited market opportunities which require integrated, forward-looking solutions. By converging soilhealth restoration, agroecological practices, and emerging digital and AI-driven innovations, the festivalseeks to equip youth, students, and community actors with practical knowledge, adaptive skills, andcollaborative platforms necessary to drive sustainable food systems transformation and resilient rurallivelihoods.

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