Call for Agri-Innovators: HealthyDiets4Africa Agribusiness Accelerator Program (Kenya)

The program focuses on empowering and retooling youth and women-led agribusiness innovations to scale and become investor-ready, providing business development support, mentorship, funding linkages, market exposure, and access to project partners. The thematic areas include sustainable innovations for crop production, urban and peri-urban agriculture, value addition and fortification, storage and post-harvest handling innovations, and training, distribution, and aggregation services. The program also targets value chains in novel and underutilized foods, including vegetables such as mushrooms, African leafy vegetables, and pumpkin leaves; cereals like finger millet, pearl millet, and sorghum; tubers such as cassava, yams, and sweet potatoes; legumes including pigeon peas, cow peas, groundnuts, green grams, and beans; fruits like tree tomato, guava, baobab, and other fruits; and livestock including indigenous poultry and insects for feed and food.

The accelerator program provides participants with opportunities for training, e-learning, mentorship, business upscaling, exposure to national and international trade fairs, and potential collaborations with HealthyDiets4Africa project partners. High-potential innovations may receive a total award of $5,000 for the top three ready-to-scale enterprises and additional funding linkage support through project partners and investor networks.

Applications are open to individuals or teams of up to ten people. Youth applicants and team members must be between 18 and 35 years old, while women applicants and team members must be between 35 and 45 years old. Eligible innovations must address a food system problem within the outlined thematic areas and focus on the specified value chains to qualify for participation.

For more information, visit FSPN Africa.