A $5.1 million grant from the United States has been given to seven emerging agricultural businesses in Kenya to help them grow their operations while tackling the nation’s problems with food insecurity.

The funds were announced Wednesday in Nairobi on the sidelines of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) business event by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Prosper Africa, and Feed the Future Initiative.

The funding provided to the private businesses, according to the agencies, will “support access to agricultural inputs and production technologies while expanding Kenyan value-added processing and the export of products like macadamia nuts and dried fruit,” as well as increase incomes for more than 1 million Kenyan farmers.

“This comes at a time when many of these farmers are faced with recurrent drought and significant price increases especially in essential commodities that has been driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” said USAID’s mission director for Kenya David Gosney.

The seven businesses chosen for this funding, according to Mr. Gosney, were picked because they “investing in solutions to improve the lives of Kenyan farmers and to create new jobs and new economic opportunities”.

Beneficiaries of the award include Afrimac Nut Company ($450,000), an exporter of locally produced macadamia nuts and oil, Regen ($1.2 million), an organic fertilizer manufacturer, Sunculture ($800,000), a solar irrigation system manufacturer, and iProcure ($1.2 million).

Others are Exotic-EPZ Kenya ($1 million) – a processor and exporter of Macadamia nuts and Goshen Farm Exporters ($300,000), which will “expand its processing capacity and market compliance, enabling them to export to the USA and other premium markets”.

According to USAID’s deputy assistant administrator Michael Michener, the agency will continue to distribute funds of this nature to help Kenyan farmers expand the markets for their goods.