Process unsold avocados into valuable new products to support smallholder 
farmers in Kenya

On average in Kenya, the fruit and vegetable supply chain and smallholder farmers suffer up to 50% post-harvest losses. This amounts to an annual loss of around 1.1 billion dollars. Smallholder avocado farmers, who live below the poverty line, are the main victims of this loss: they miss out on opportunities to increase their incomes, and are victims of extortion by middlemen who only accept first-grade produce, leaving all second-grade produce to the farms.

Collaborative enterprises can help remedy the supply chain's inefficiencies and significantly reduce post-harvest losses.

Shambani Pro’s project, which aims to evaluate two collaborative business models, has already been piloted and is currently running with more than 100 farmers to pre-process rejected avocados in order to add value to unsold products and reduce waste.

Shambani Pro's project consists in setting up micro-factories run and managed by women to collect unwanted avocados and process them into avocado oil ready to be sold on international markets. Shambani Pro aims to sell these second-grade products at higher prices, and to promote the use of solar energy in the transformation units to reduce food waste. The processing of the unwanted avocados is carried out at the Shambani Pro hubs. Once collected, the avocados are then transported to the micro-processing units to be turned into oil and sold on international markets.

The processing of unwanted avocados will be carried out in two different ways:

• The first model will involve reliable suppliers of unwanted avocados. These products are crushed and dried in a factory, then pressed into oil.

• The second model directly involves smallholder farmers, who pre-process their avocados to produce oil. In this model, the farmers handle the crushing and drying of their products, and sell their processed high-value products directly to the factory, at a higher price.

• Involving small-scale producers in the creation of high-quality products will enable them to generate additional income.

FID’s funding will be used to measure the effectiveness of these two operating models, with the aim of extending the most effective model to several communities and selling these processed products on a wider range of markets.

This pilot will be tested during a year and aims to:

• Increase smallholder farmers’ income
• Strengthen smallholder farmers’ participation and decision-making
• Promote gender equality in smallholder farmers communities by encouraging young and female farmers’ participation in the value-creation process
• Increase youth and women farmers’ participation in agricultural activities
• Increase access to sustainable climate-smart tech innovation (solar-powered factory and solar drying)
• Create employment opportunities for women and the youth
• Promote a responsible and sustainable production, with a transparent value chain and an equal value distribution