Simon Heckscher ’11Journal #1
I have just finished my third week with TechnoServe in Nairobi, Kenya. TechnoServe is an international nonprofit development organization with the mission to help entrepreneurial men and women in poor, rural areas of the developing world to build businesses that create jobs, income, and economic opportunity for their families, their communities, and their countries.
The objective of my project is to support TechnoServe Kenya with its food security initiative. A large proportion of people in Kenya suffer from hunger, and TechnoServe tries to reduce food insecurity through various projects, including the commercialization of agricultural value chains and the development of entrepreneurs. The organization has extensive experience in dairy farming and the crop value chain in Kenya. However, TechnoServe Kenya has no significant information on the poultry sector. Therefore, the objective of my project is to do a comprehensive analysis of the poultry sector in Kenya in order to develop a fact-based intervention model to increase food security through the commercialization of poultry products.
My experience with TechnoServe has been great so far. At the beginning I was introduced to the staff in the Kenya Office — there are more than 40 employees in the office; the majority of them are Kenyans. I also received background information on TechnoServe’s other projects in Kenya: a dairy development program targeted to help small dairy farmers in rural Kenya, the horticulture program dealing with mango, passion fruit, bananas, etc., and the Young Women in Enterprise initiative, which helps young women to start their own businesses.
At the beginning, my work was focused on structuring the poultry project and developing a detailed work plan. I discussed the plan with Julie, the project manager, and started the research and analyses. The focus was initially to gather relevant information on the current market situation, i.e. supply and demand of poultry products, industry characteristics, etc. Last week, I also met with the head of the Kenya Poultry Farmers Association as well as industry experts to discuss the project and gather relevant industry information. The project is a classic industry assessment and my prior experience as a strategy consultant as well as the first year at Columbia Business School helped me to successfully do my work. I am already very excited and looking forward to the next weeks with many more interesting interviews scheduled that will hopefully provide interesting insights into the industry.
Journal #2
I am now in my sixth week with TechnoServe. Over the last three weeks, I have continued with the industry assessment of the poultry sector in Kenya. It has been very interesting, and we found some remarkable facts about the industry.
The majority of poultry in Kenya is chicken at 95 percent. Most of the chicken is “indigenous chicken” (local breeds raised by the rural population) and not commercial broilers and layers. In fact, it is estimated that about 90 percent of the rural population raises some chicken. This indicates how important poultry is for the rural population and what a successful instrument it potentially can be to fight under-nutrition and poverty among the rural population. However, even though indigenous chicken dominates in terms of number of birds, commercial broilers have a very large share of the Kenyan meat production. This highlights one of the key problems with the rural, indigenous chicken: it has a very low productivity.
To better understand the farming and production of indigenous chicken, we met with a representative from the National Animal Husbandry Research Centre at Naivasha. The center analyzes the different indigenous chicken species in Kenya and develops training and support for farmers to increase their productivity.
Other analyses were focused on the supply chain for both indigenous and commercial chicken production. The challenge with indigenous chicken is that you have a very large number of farmers who own only five–10 chickens to supplement their nutrition and income. As a result these farmers are poorly linked to the final markets, and many middlemen are involved that capture some parts of the margin. These two topics will probably present the biggest challenges in working out a solution for rural farmers to increase their income and improve food security.
I was also able to spend a day with TechnoServe’s Young Women in Enterprise program. We visited some women in the slums of Nairobi and discussed with them their business ideas and how their small shops were doing. It was very interesting to see how the women — who are typically younger than 25 years of age, most with children, and many who suffer from HIV — started their own little shops and are able to create successful businesses.
I am very much looking forward to the remaining four weeks with TechnoServe. It has been an incredible experience, and I am curious to see how my project evolves in the coming weeks.
Journal #3
I am in my last week of my summer internship with TechnoServe in Kenya. My poultry industry assessment for Kenya is finished after 10 weeks of research, analyses, and various interviews with industry experts. Last week we had a final highlight: I presented the preliminary results of my study in front of a panel of industry experts, and we discussed the findings and multiple options for a potential poultry intervention model to help the rural poor. It was three very interesting hours, and we had a lively discussion. In the end we confirmed the study’s findings and agreed on a proposal for an intervention set up.
The key challenges that small rural farmers face with their chicken production are a very fragmented supply chain with many middlemen that capture large parts of the revenue as well as a poor adoption of modern chicken management techniques such as supplementing feeding, disease prevention etc. which leads to very low productivity of the rural indigenous chicken. TechnoServe is convinced that concerted efforts aimed at bringing together access to inputs, information and a strong producer marketing system can go a long way to alleviating some of the key challenges faced by small farmers. The proposed intervention is to establish a self-sustaining enterprise that links farmers to markets, provides crucial input materials to farmers, and offers rigorous training and management support to farmers. It should group the production of many small producers, eliminate middlemen and directly market the products to customers, as well as help farmers increase their productivity through training and the provision of crucial input materials such as supplementing feed, vaccines, and capital. Based on current estimates this market-based solution will be profitable and self-sustainable. In the end, it is expected that a typical farmer will be able to increase his/her income from chicken farming by 150 percent. About 700 farmers in the pilot project would be able to develop a dependable source of income, alleviating the pressing problems of severe poverty and food insecurity among the rural poor in Kenya. Once a successful pilot has been completed, the model can be replicated in various other parts of Kenya, impacting even more farmers and their families.
Based on my study, TechnoServe is now working on a proposal to get funding for a pilot program. It would be an unbelievable personal reward to see my work being implemented and having a true impact on the lives of numerous poor farmers in Kenya. To summarize, my time with TechnoServe in Kenya was absolutely unforgettable. I was able to successfully apply my MBA skills in a nonprofit context; I have learned a lot in terms of technical skills, about Kenya and the East African region, and I have met some very talented people during my time with TechnoServe — many of them will remain friends long after the summer internship is over. Columbia Business School Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship was an enormous help to let this dream become true, and I am very thankful for the support I have received through the program.
