A youth agripreneur can discover a policy problem long before it appears in an official report. A delayed permit can hold up a shipment. Weak extension services can reduce yields. A packaging requirement can alter margins overnight. A county budget can overlook a market facility that local enterprises depend on. A finance product may be advertised as accessible while its collateral requirements remain beyond the reach of a young business.
These experiences reveal something important about agribusiness. Agribusiness enterprise performance is shaped by decisions made far beyond the farm or processing floor. Rules, public services, budgets, standards, infrastructure and access to information, all influence whether a young enterprise can survive and grow.
Kenya has a remarkably youthful population, with 75 per cent of its people under the age of 35, according to the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census. In 2025, the youth unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 was estimated at 15.2 per cent, while agriculture accounted for 45.8 per cent of total employment. The opportunity therefore extends beyond bringing more youth into agriculture. It is also about equipping them to understand and influence the systems within which their enterprises operate.
For youth agripreneurs, policy influence should be understood as an enterprise capability. It begins when lived business experience is converted into evidence, organised into a practical proposal and presented through a channel that can lead to action.
Youth agripreneurs experience the consequences of policy every day. The challenge is turning those experiences into credible evidence, clear proposals and sustained influence.
From Enterprise Challenges to Policy Evidence
Policy influence is often associated with politicians, lawyers, large corporations and civil society organisations. This often positions youth agripreneurs as policy recipients, with limited recognition of their potential to shape policy decisions. Yet agripreneurs operate close to the realities that policy is meant to address. They see where services fail, where regulations create unintended costs, where standards are difficult to meet and where programmes miss the enterprises they were designed to support. That experience can become valuable policy evidence when it is documented, organised and communicated credibly.
A policy shaper does more than attend a forum. Effective influence requires the ability to identify a recurring problem, demonstrate its impact, direct a practical request to the right institution, build legitimate support and follow the issue through implementation.
The shift is simple but significant: move from describing a problem to defining the decision that could solve it. The strongest policy arguments begin with evidence from the enterprise itself. A poultry farmer can track feed prices, mortality, veterinary service delays and market prices. A vegetable aggregator can document rejected consignments, buyer specifications, transport costs and permit delays. A processor can record electricity interruptions, packaging costs, inspection requirements, product losses and customer complaints.
A useful evidence record should answer six questions:
What exactly happened?
When and where did it happen?
Who was affected and how many people or enterprises were involved?
What was the financial, quality, employment or food safety consequence?
Which decision, service, regulation or budget line is connected to the problem?
What evidence would demonstrate improvement?
This discipline separates a recurring system problem from a single frustrating experience. It also gives decision makers something concrete to respond to.
Turning Evidence into Influence
A long list of complaints rarely produces a clear decision. A stronger approach is to identify one primary request and support it with evidence.
For example, instead of saying that young farmers need more support, an agripreneur could ask a county agriculture department to publish and fund a quarterly extension schedule for a specific value chain, beginning in the next financial year, with service coverage reported by ward.
The difference is precision. The second request identifies the responsible institution, the action required, the timing and the measure of progress.
The request must also match the institution's authority. County governments are responsible for several functions that directly affect agribusiness, including crop and animal husbandry, livestock sale yards, county abattoirs, disease control, county markets and county planning. National institutions handle matters such as national agricultural policy, legislation and many regulatory standards. Knowing where authority sits prevents good proposals from being directed to the wrong office.
Kenya already provides formal routes through which citizens and enterprises can participate in public decisions. The Constitution recognises public participation, access to information and the right to petition. It also requires the State to support youth participation in political, social and economic spheres.
For youth agripreneurs, the practical question is which channel best fits the issue.
Channel | How a youth agripreneur can engage |
County planning and budgets | Participate in county planning, annual development plans, budget preparation and validation forums. Submit proposals that connect an enterprise problem to a specific county investment or service. |
County assemblies | Submit memoranda, attend hearings, engage relevant committees and raise agriculture, market, livestock, fisheries, food safety or enterprise issues through formal participation processes. |
County Budget and Economic Forum | Engage through recognised business, cooperative, farmer, youth, professional and other representative organisations on county plans and fiscal matters. |
Parliament and national processes | Submit memoranda, participate in public hearings, provide evidence to committees and use the petition process where the matter falls within national authority. |
National Youth Council | Use the Council as a bridge for youth inclusion, coordination and engagement with government and policy institutions. |
Agriculture and food system consultations | Engage through producer organisations, private sector roundtables, youth forums and national or county agriculture consultations. |
Participation, however, should not be confused with influence. A memorandum being received does not mean the issue has been considered. A proposal being adopted does not mean it has been implemented. Implementation itself does not guarantee better incomes, jobs, food safety, resilience or market access. Influence becomes meaningful when the path from proposal to decision and outcome can be traced.
Individual enterprises provide valuable evidence, but one business cannot credibly claim to represent every youth in agribusiness. Stronger policy engagement often comes from coalitions that bring together affected enterprises, producer organisations, cooperatives, buyers, processors, researchers and other relevant actors.
A credible coalition should be clear about who it represents, where members operate, the value chains involved and the position on which members agree. It should also acknowledge genuine differences. Farmers, traders, processors, regulators and consumers may experience the same issue differently. Good policy engagement makes those differences visible while identifying the common ground.
Experience from African agriculture shows why this matters. In Togo, organised youth farmers successfully pushed for greater youth representation in a national farmers' forum and later established a youth platform within the national farmers' coordination structure. In Senegal, producer organisations used local consultations, commodity discussions and a farmers' manifesto to develop proposals that fed into negotiations around an agricultural framework law.
Kenya has its own examples. Dairy sector reforms involved smallholder farmers, cooperatives, milk vendors, researchers, government agencies and civil society actors using evidence, training, public dialogue and regulatory engagement. In the potato sector, farmer advocacy also demonstrated the importance of involving affected actors and connecting policy proposals to the realities of implementation.
The lesson is not that advocacy automatically produces policy change. The lesson is that organised evidence, credible representation and sustained engagement give enterprise concerns a stronger route into public decision making.
From Participation to Policy Influence
The discipline that is most easily neglected is follow up. A successful meeting is not the end of policy engagement. After submitting a memorandum, petition or budget proposal, agripreneurs should keep a clear record of:
the date and institution of submission
the exact request and evidence provided
the person or committee responsible
the expected response or decision point
what was accepted, rejected or deferred
the implementation action, budget, regulation, permit or service change
the indicator that will show whether the intervention worked
This record should also capture failure. A proposal rejected because it falls outside an institution's mandate provides useful learning. A proposal that is adopted but receives no funding should be described accurately. A policy that is implemented without improving the underlying problem should trigger review.
That level of honesty protects the credibility of youth advocacy and helps partners, policymakers and financiers distinguish compelling stories from interventions that can be repeated and scaled.
Africa's current agrifood agenda creates a timely opening for stronger youth influence. The Kampala CAADP Strategy and Action Plan for 2026 to 2035 includes a target to empower at least 30 per cent of youth in agrifood value chains by 2035. It also places emphasis on inclusive policies, stronger institutions, investment and the development of entrepreneurial and leadership capabilities.
Targets alone will not create influence. Youth agripreneurs need the judgement to identify the decisions that matter, the commercial understanding to explain their consequences, the discipline to build evidence and the relationships to engage the institutions that can act.
This is closely aligned with Kameru Leadership Foundation's focus on developing agribusiness leaders who can contribute to stronger enterprises and more sustainable food systems. Through leadership development, ecosystem engagement, field immersion and policy dialogue, youth agribusiness entrepreneurs can strengthen their ability to participate meaningfully in the decisions that shape their operating environment.
The journey from participant to policy shaper can begin with four things: one documented problem, one precise request, one credible coalition and one formal channel. Influence grows when that process continues beyond the meeting and into the decision, implementation and measurement of results.
Youth agripreneurs should not wait for an invitation to shape the future of food systems. They should build the evidence, leadership and credibility that make their contribution difficult to overlook.
References
World Bank, World Development Indicators. Youth unemployment and employment in agriculture, Kenya, 2025.
Constitution of Kenya, 2010.
County Governments Act, 2012.
Public Finance Management Act, 2012.
National Assembly of Kenya, Standing Orders and public petition procedures.
African Union, African Youth Charter.
African Union, Kampala CAADP Declaration and CAADP Strategy and Action Plan, 2026 to 2035.
Food and Agriculture Organization, youth employment and agrifood systems research.
Kameru Leadership Foundation, organisational and YALA programme materials.
