By now you should have heard of Noah Nasiali-Kadima, an IT specialist, who won Facebook’s Global Community Leadership Programme Award in 2018 for creating a robust online community of African farmers. The Facebook group, #AfricaFarmersClub, was started in July 2017 out of Noah’s own passion for farming and the realization that the welfare of the farmer was being ignored.

The challenge

What you may not be aware of, is that before this point, Noah had been disappointed by farming. He invested in an agribusiness which brought no promised returns. He then got into a contract to supply produce and when his crop was ready, the contractor pulled out, leaving him with a bountiful harvest with no buyer.

Even as he recovered, Noah started thinking about the welfare of the farmer who had limited access to timely information and support. It is at this point that the Africa Farmers Club (AFC) was born, to provide an online space for farmer led discussions. One of his first posts on the group was an image of him on his flooded farm – crops submerged. As a result of that post, five other farmers came to his support to clear his farm. Noah shared his vulnerability and by so doing empowered other farmers to share their challenges and receive much needed support form other farmers in Kenya and abroad. Africa Farmers Club currently boasts a community of hundreds of thousands of farmers both online and offline.