Shamba Pride – OPES-LCEF

Solutions:

P4G has awarded the partnership about US $266,000 in grant funding.

Kenya's 8.5 million smallholder farmers rely on approximately 20,000 informal agro-dealer stores for agricultural inputs and services. However, these stores face significant challenges, including supply chain inefficiencies, counterfeit products, working capital shortages, poor infrastructure and inadequate business management skills. While climate-smart innovations exist, rural farmers often lack access to critical resources like irrigation, drought-resistant crops, and weather information, keeping them trapped in cycles of low productivity and income.

Traditional farming methods often depend on synthetic inputs, degrading soil health, harming biodiversity, polluting water sources, and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Shamba Pride sets itself apart by providing village-level farmers with access to quality agricultural inputs, essential services, such as competitive credit facilities and digital tools for business management, and valuable information through a one-stop e-commerce platform. Its technology-powered digi-shops ensure last-mile delivery of quality agricultural inputs, allowing agro-dealers and farmers to conveniently shop and receive doorstep deliveries within hours.

Shamba Pride is building Climate Smart Villages, an organized platform that connects farmers with medium and large-scale buyers, facilitating reliable and profitable market opportunities for their produce, also known as market linkage. By eliminating intermediaries and counterfeit products, Shamba Pride streamlines the supply chain, lowering farming costs and promoting climate-smart practices, including organic inputs, climate-resilient seedlings, irrigation and conservation agriculture. Additionally, its market linkage services provide farmers with stable income opportunities and reduce post-harvest losses.

During the P4G funding period, the Shamba Pride – OPES-LCEF partnership will:

1. Establish 100 Climate Smart Villages to improve farmers' access to bio-inputs and bridge information gaps for both farmers and agro-dealers. They will recruit and train 10 new digi-champions to support these villages, set up demonstration farms to showcase best practices, organize county-level awareness workshops, and enhance the operational efficiency of digital agro-retail stores (digi-shops).
2. Expand Shamba Pride’s digital platform to enhance climate-smart agricultural training for farmers and agro-dealers. Key efforts will include establishing baseline environmental data and impact measurement frameworks, facilitating market linkages for bio-products in both local and international markets, and developing a carbon credit monitoring and monetization system.
3.  Mobilize agro-dealers and farmers to contribute to policy discussions on Agricultural Bills and advocate for stronger government support in climate-smart agriculture. This includes strengthening county partnerships for farmer training and extension services, engaging stakeholders to push for carbon trading frameworks and tax incentives for bio-inputs and participating in Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) meetings to provide data-driven insights on climate-smart farming outcomes.

Shamba Pride has already impacted 60,000 farmers and 2,900 agro-dealers across 12 counties. It plans to reduce up to 16,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually and increase the number of climate-smart inputs in digi-shops by up to 40%. With plans to expand into Uganda and Tanzania by 2026, the company is poised to transform sustainable agriculture across East Africa.

To date, Shamba Pride has launched its Climate Smart Villages in 10 counties across Kenya – including Makueni, Machakos, Kisii, Migori and Embu – replacing chemical inputs with climate-smart alternatives.  In the last quarter, biopesticide sales reached 29.3% of agrochemical sales, and organic fertilizers were nearly 10% of fertilizers sold, demonstrating early shifts in farmer adoption.

The partnership established 24 demonstration farms, contracted and trained 10 activation agents, and engaged over 5,000 smallholder farmers through carbon mapping, trainings and climate-smart inputs offered by 50 digi-shops. County awareness workshops, conducted in collaboration with local governments, accompanied the formal launch of 24 Climate Smart Villages, advising farmers on simple and practical climate-smart farming opportunities.

Shamba Pride deepened its relationship with key partners including Varaha and KAPI Limited, and P4G-supported startups Irri Hub Ke and Safi Organics, expanding the availability of regenerative agriculture solutions. To standardize farmer training, the partnership developed comprehensive Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) guides covering 23 practices and leveraged a train-the-trainer model to prepare 8 lead agents and 132 field agents.

In parallel, Shamba Pride procured consultants to support with producing climate-smart farming policies with clear strategic actions across six pillars, and trained Digi-Champions and supply chain teams to ensure uptake among agro-dealers. Over 800 farmers and 50 digi-shops participated in sessions focused on smart farming technologies, CSA practices, climate risk mitigation, sustainable input supply chains, capacity building and carbon credit incentives.

Carbon credit monitoring was also advanced. Shamba Pride engaged Varaha and Oyu Green, trained carbon mapping agents across 50 villages, and set in motion a roadmap toward carbon monetization for farmers.

At the investment and policy level, OPES-LCEF supported Shamba Pride in setting up an investor ready data room, refining communication strategies, improving training frameworks and facilitating connections with carbon experts and climate-smart suppliers.

The partnership comprises the following partners: Shamba Pride (lead business partner); OPES-LCEF (lead administrative partner).