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MOTHERLAND / HOW WE WORK

How a harvest becomes income.

How MOTHERLAND builds the whole chain after the harvest: seed, know-how, storage, logistics, committed buyers, Lima AI and the next generation.

Farmers from Siaya holding bags of MOTHERLAND SEEDS
Farmer from Siaya County holding two bags of MOTHERLAND SEEDS
WHAT WE DO

From soil to market. We build the whole chain.

A good harvest alone is not enough. To turn it into income, every link has to hold: healthy soil, good seed, know-how at harvest, dry storage, transport, reliable buyers and a fair price. If one is missing, the value is lost. So we build the whole chain, together with the farmers and our partner organisation MOTHERLAND CBO.

  1. SOILLiving soil

    Compost, organic fertiliser and regenerative methods. Healthy soil holds water and carbon and yields more.

  2. SEEDSeed that comes back

    Certified seed as a loan. After harvest it flows back into the seed bank.

    72.1% returned (2025)
  3. HARVESTHarvest with know-how

    Training on timing, drying and sorting. Lima AI advises on WhatsApp in English, Swahili and Dholuo.

  4. STORAGE & TRANSPORTNothing gets lost

    Joint collection, airtight storage and logistics all the way to the buyer.

  5. MARKETReliable buyers

    We pool the harvest and bring it to committed buyers. The price is fixed before planting.

    67% more per kilo
  6. INCOMEThe value stays local

    More income for families. And part of it flows back into soil and seed.

    83.7% earn more

BACK INTO THE SOIL, SEASON AFTER SEASON

THE DIGITAL BACKBONE

Underneath the whole chain runs one digital system.

Every farmer, every bag, every shilling can be traced. That is how we see what works, and how partners see where their money goes.

100%DIGITAL BACKEND

Registration, seed loans, harvest and payouts straight to M-Pesa: everything runs digitally, nothing on paper.

A→ZFULL TRACEABILITY

Every step of the value chain is documented, from seed to buyer.

70+DATA POINTS PER FARMER

Soil, planting, harvest, losses, income. That is how impact becomes measurable.

LIMA AIADVICE ON WHATSAPP

Our AI advisor answers in English, Swahili and Dholuo, at every step, around the clock.

YOUNG EARTH GUARDIANSAnd the next generation learns all of this in school gardens.
Joseph Were
"I farmed for 30 years battling the same problems: expensive inputs, low yields, and no market that treated me fairly. Since MOTHERLAND came, all three of those problems have been addressed."
JOSEPH WERE · 63 · SOIL HEALTH AMBASSADOR · SIAYA COUNTY
THE ECOSYSTEM

One ecosystem.
Every part feeds the next.

MOTHERLAND began with one question: why do farmers lose so much of their harvest before it is ever sold? Answering it meant solving storage, prices, seed, knowledge and the next generation together. So we do not rush from one project to the next. We build one system, run by the same Local Impact Teams in a network of more than 2,000 farmers. When one part grows stronger, the others do too.

A FIXED PRICE, BEFORE PLANTING

Nyota Beans

Our bean value chain. Farmers grow Nyota beans regeneratively with certified seed, and they know their price before they plant: MOTHERLAND buys at a fixed market price, in 2025 that was 67% more per kilo than they used to get on the open market. We collect, store, process and sell directly to buyers, so no farmer has to sell in a hurry after the harvest.

Liz Akinyi
LIZ AKINYI · 40 · LEAD FARMER · PAP GORI

More than three times the harvest from the same acre. Liz Akinyi shows what living soil can do.

30 → 100–120 KG BEANS PER ACRE · +67% PER KG
OUR OWN SEED, OUR OWN FUTURE

Seed Sovereignty

Good seed used to be expensive and far away. Now it grows in Siaya. In 2025, our first 3 acres produced 1,390.5 kg of KEPHIS-certified Nyota seed, and seed production is now growing from 20 toward 100 acres.

Farmers receive seed as a loan and return part of their harvest as seed for the next season. In 2025, 72.1% came back into the system. Step by step, this also protects locally adapted and indigenous varieties.

1,390.5 kgcertified seed in 2025
20 → 100acres of seed production
72.1%seed-loan recovery
AN AGRONOMIST IN EVERY POCKET

Lima AI

Lima is our AI-powered farming advisor on WhatsApp, the app people already use every day. It already speaks three languages, English, Swahili and Dholuo, the local language in Siaya. For many farmers this is the first digital advice in their own language. Lima answers questions from approved agricultural content, and shares market prices, soil and weather information and a training course of 16 modules.

Our Local Impact Teams use Lima to reach more farmers with better answers, and farmers get advice even when no field officer is nearby. Every conversation also shows us what farmers need, so the whole system learns. Built with PeachStone AI and supported by the Cisco Foundation since 2025.

16training modules
12,000farmers on Lima, goal 2027
3languages, incl. Dholuo
THE NEXT GENERATION

Everything above only lasts if the next generation wants to farm.

Young Earth Guardians with a MOTHERLAND team member at a school in Siaya County
THE INTERGENERATIONAL LOOP

Young Earth Guardians

Many children of farmers do not want to follow their parents onto the land. They grew up seeing farming as exploitation, poverty and ever less predictable weather, while youth unemployment in Kenya stays high.

Young Earth Guardians turns this around. In school gardens in Siaya County, children learn regenerative agriculture as something that works, pays and heals the soil, while they watch their parents earn a fair price. Farmers prove that the land can offer a good livelihood, and the next generation brings new knowledge, tools and ideas back to it. Afrika Salons in Hamburg connect these schools with audiences in Germany.

Willis Ochieng
WILLIS OCHIENG · 29 · SIAYA COUNTY

"I had no interest in agriculture because the inputs were too expensive and the market was too low. One MOTHERLAND training changed all of that. Now I am farming, and I have a market waiting for my harvest."

Campaign image: farmer from Siaya on blue