Africa: Amiran Kenya looks to boost East Africa’s farmers with Israeli tech
The warehouses containing the latest in Israeli agricultural technology are located not on a farm in the Jewish state but 3,500 miles away on an expansive campus outside Nairobi, the booming capital of Kenya. From there they will be shipped to farmers across East Africa.
The conduit between Israeli labs and African fields is Amiran Kenya, an Israeli-founded company (now a subsidiary of the British multinational Balton CP) that brings Israeli agricultural know-how to East African farms. Established in 1963, the year Kenya gained independence, Amiran provides supplies to farmers from planting to harvest with an eye toward supporting small growers across the region.
“We linked the farms with Israeli experts to build the industry,” said Yariv Kedar, the head of Amiran’s agriculture division. “If you have the irrigation but not the seeds, you haven’t solved the problem. If you haven’t sprayed, you haven’t solved the problem. It’s a holistic approach.”
Much of East Africa is a lush green landscape traversed by hills, forests and water sources like the Nile River and Lake Victoria. Unlike Israel, whose extensive deserts make it less than ideal for farming, the problem facing African farmers isn’t a shortage of water, according to Kedar, but the continued reliance on traditional, inefficient farming methods.
Read more about how the Israeli technologies benefit East Africa's farmers at: www.jta.org
