Soil health and fertility innovation in Kenya: 5 observations from the past decade

Kenya is home to the biggest Agtech ecosystem in Africa. It accounted for more than 50% of funding into Agtech ecosystems in Africa since 2014. Farm management services, agricultural marketplace and agricultural bioenergy and biomaterials have attracted the majority of funding.

​Increasingly, governments, corporates, research organisations and funders are looking towards these innovations as part of their efforts to drive the adoption of more sustainable agricultural practices and how they can support agtech ecosystems to drive more innovative solutions. For example, improving the data around these agtech ecosystems, facilitating public-private partnerships (PPPs) and improving coordination across stakeholders.

​This approach is already picking up speed for addressing concerns around soil fertility and soil health. But more is needed to help connect and accelerate the ecosystem towards better practices and policies.

In an effort to accelerate the data and startup ecosystem in Kenya to improve soil fertility and soil health in Kenya, the World Bank, Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), Thryve Innovation CoLab and Briter Bridges hosted an event "Getting Soil Up to Speed” on the back of the AU Africa Fertiliser and Soil Health Summit.

Drawing on data and intelligence from the recently launched Agbase initiative with Mercy Corps Agrifin, Briter presented on 5 key observations from the past decade on soil health and fertility innovation in Kenya. They included: