A cohort of six university graduates in the field of agriculture will head to China this month, September 2025, to attend a specialized Master’s Degree in Resource Utilization and Plant Protection.
The Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services – Kenya (KeFAAS), Country Focal Person, Peter Mwangi, said that the young professionals have been selected to join the Sino-Africa Science and Technology Backyard (STB) program (Cohort 2) at the China Agricultural University (CAU).
Mwangi explained that in 2024, KeFAAS partnered with the Office of Innovation at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and CAU, to promote the Multi-actor Agricultural Innovation Platform (MAIP) in Africa.
This collaboration led to the formal launch of the STB project in Kenya, designed to grow young African professionals who will lead sustainable agricultural transformation and contribute to food security.
Speaking in Nairobi during a farewell ceremony for the students, Mwangi highlighted that under the initiative, KeFAAS sent its first cohort of three young extension professionals to CAU, to pursue a Master’s degree in Resource Utilization and Plant Protection.
“The selected students will attend a three-year sandwich program, which includes a one year of academic study in China, one year of fieldwork in Kenya, and a final year back in China dedicated to thesis completion,” said Mwangi.
He acknowledged the strong partnerships behind this initiative, and highlighted KeFAAS’ continued commitment to expanding youth participation in agricultural innovation.
Mwangi explained that KeFAAS is a forum for agricultural advisory services which offers technical direction to Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services (AAES) providers in Kenya.
He disclosed that the first cohort are finishing in October and they will be back to Kenya where they are going to establish the scientific technology backyard in a place called Mareira, that is Kenyatta Agriculture Institution in Murang’a, where all the technologies of what they will have learnt will be implemented in the institution and the farming community.
“Next year we also have a cohort of another 10 students. We have been allocated 25 slots for the programme but we have encountered a challenge in finding enough suitable candidates due to dwindling numbers of students undertaking agriculture at university level,” he said.
Mwangi said that the training is suitable for Kenya since the technologies available in China are majorly designed for smallholder farmers who also form the majority of the Kenyan farming community.
“If you look at the model of agriculture in Kenya, where our land is getting smaller and smaller every day, you realise we need to have the appropriate technologies, even if it is mechanisation, we can have those walking tractors, those small things/machines which are being used in China. So, we really want these students to go and bring those technologies which are very suitable for the smallholder farmers,” said Mwangi.
Javan Kiptoo, one of the beneficiaries of the training programme said that he recently graduated from Egerton University, where he pursued a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Education and Extension.
“I am from Baringo County where I have been cultivating maize and butternut intercrop which was a good venture. However, I encountered many challenges which necessitated me to do a lot of research on how to combat them and so, in my research the Master’s programme was suggested to me,” said Kiptoo.
He said that once he gains the knowledge from the specialized training, he will come back to Baringo County and assist the locals who are struggling with issues of having large tracts of lands but low return on investment on the land.
“We have a challenge of acidification of the soils, poor rainfall patterns, over-dependence on rainfall, and so with a course on Resource Utilisation, I believe I will be uniquely placed to be able to train farmers on how to effectively use their resources at home,” said Kiptoo.
On the part of Plant Protection in the country, Kiptoo said that Kenya has a major problem of pesticide use. He noted pesticides are used indiscriminately in Kenya, and therefore hopes that with added knowledge on how to select and use, the country will benefit alot.
Prof Agnes Oywaya Nkurumwa from Egerton University, Department Agricultural Education and Extension and a member of the KeFAAS board said that this particular partnership with China where Kenyan young people are getting an opportunity to go and study at China Agricultural University is a very good chance for the country in terms of building capacity in agriculture.
Prof Nkurumwa explained that one challenge that Kenya is facing is that many young people do not want to be engaged in agriculture.
“When you look at the numbers of young people who are enrolling in agricultural programmes generally, it is going down and so we have this challenge of trying to attract and retain young people in agriculture,” said Prof Nkurumwa.
She added that this particular scholarship is a good opportunity because it entrenches the students deeper into agriculture as a profession while at the same time giving the country an opportunity to learn from China who are ahead of us in terms of agriculture.
“In Kenya we have a lot of technologies that have been generated but we are not able to effectively translate those technologies into practise on the farms where we can actually see the impact in terms of agricultural production and profitability for the farmers and so one of the ways that we are expecting our young people are going to learn and benefit us as a country is by being able to learn about how China supports their farmers,” said Nkurumwa.
By Joseph Ng’ang’a
