Entrepreneur’s Name: Papu Haroon

Email Address: papuharoon@kilifimoringa.com

Website: http://kilifimoringa.com

Location: Kilifi

Thematic Area: Agribusiness

Overview

Kilifi Moringa Estate is a company that propagates moringa trees along the Kenyan coast and processes and sells moringa based products internationally. KME is trying to diversify the local economy especially along the Kenyan coastal region, an area that has been heavily affected by the prolonged drought and high poverty levels due to the collapse of the tourism industry. Kilifi Moringa Estate offers transformative drivers of food security, economic growth, health and social security by engaging previously under-utilized land while simultaneously increasing tree cover. Moringa shows great promise as a tool to help overcome some of the most severe problems in the developing world—malnutrition, deforestation and poverty. The plant grows in the tropics in semi-arid climates (low rainfall, sandy soils, high sunlight), making it a viable solution for areas affected by drought. Moringa is capable of growing in difficult climatic conditions.  It is a cash crop as well as a food crop (leaves eaten as vegetables) and hence increases the capacity of the population to cope (from an income as well as nutritional point of view) with the effects of climatic changes.  For example, in the current drought situation in Kenya it is about the only crop that is green along along the coastal region. It is essentially a tree and therefore has a good agroforestry fit.