AGRICULTURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP A VENTURE OF SUCCESS, JOB CREATION

Although the number of Kenyans aspiring to be farmers is declining, agriculture has a huge potential in responding to food insecurity locally and internationally - thus job creation. In an age when more than 8 million Kenyan are classified as unemployed agriculture might be the neglected corner stone. The book Creating Abundance: Visionary Entrepreneurs of Agriculture by Hiram M. Drache says what makes the deference is how one looks at and practices agriculture that makes a difference. He cites an example of Louis Larson who started his dairy operation with one calf and now owns 12,500 milk cows. Leonard Odde left the farm at age 17 but returned years later to amass 40,000 acres of corn, soybeans and sunflowers. Beginning with just 200 acres in the Red River Valley in 1964, Ronald Offutt built an enterprise that has become the nation’s largest producer of potatoes. These examples illustrate that unlike other enterprises one can join agricultural entrepreneurship with a will and determination to succeed while having a clear vision. The book is crystal clear that these three farmers as well as others interviewed in the book are coming from different starting points however their success stories are interwoven by work ethic, determination and vision. These three components says the author who is a retired, 40-year history professor at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, turned their dreams into entrepreneurial success stories. Drache says the books is a product of the realization that most people are not able to embrace dynamic the changes sweeping a round them and turn them into opportunities. He writes: “In 1975, I spoke at a symposium on the bicentennial of American agriculture and stated that 95 percent of our farmers did not grasp the rate of change that was taking place in their industry. You can imagine the kind of reception I received from that comment.” From the responses he got, he adds: “It was then and there that I decided it was imperative to write about incredible visionaries who were not only industrializing agriculture, but were taking it into the global era.” The books brings together a tapestry of agricultural segments, 15 different enterprises and show cases that any choice is worthy to deliver success – from poultry farming to cattle production, cereal farming to row crops among them. He is candid that attitude, mindset that is informed and transformed, that has grasped the bigger picture distinguishes successful agriculture entrepreneurs. Thus he says: “But the type of thinking these people put into their businesses is what can shape” their future; adding, “I truly wanted to look at all industries within agriculture and write about what it takes to change and shape an agricultural enterprise.” The books bring home that science, technology and innovation is not limited to, only, areas the present youths are envisioning thus rural – urban migration rather technology can be integrated in agriculture to steer it to a higher level of entrepreneurship just like any other sector.