Turning Organic Waste into Harvest: Restoring soils and empowering maize farmers

© GIZ-ABF: Beatrice Kamala, a smallholder maize farmer in Homa Bay, Kenya

Kenya’s rapid population growth has placed increasing pressure on the environment. As consumption of food and goods rises, so does the amount of organic waste - filling landfills, increasing carbon emissions and degrading soil health. For many farming communities, this has translated into declining maize yields, food insecurity and growing vulnerability to climate shocks.

In Homa Bay County, these challenges are deeply felt. Years of reliance on chemical fertilizers have damaged soils, killing essential microorganisms and leaving farmland acidic and unproductive. Farmers plant their crops, but harvests are unpredictable and sometimes fail entirely.

This crisis became a call to action for Kibmist Enterprise Ltd, an organic waste management company. Originally a small agribusiness trading seedling, Kibmist quickly realized the root problem: unhealthy soils and wasted organic resources. The team asked a bold question: what if organic waste could be transformed into a solution for soil degradation, food insecurity and unemployment?

" We saw an opportunity to turn waste into wealth using vermicomposting. With ABF’s support, we knew this is the opportunity to scale our idea and make a bigger impact for farmers and communities,” said Laban Ayo, Co-founder of Kibmist Enterprises Limited

Kibmist Enterprise Ltd is turning organic waste into vermi liquid fertilizer - a nutrient-rich, organic solution to help farmers that restore soil health, improve maize yields and build climate resilience. With the support from GIZ’s Agri-Business Facility for Africa (ABF) project, Kibmist has scaled this innovation to reach more farmers across the across Homa Bay and surrounding communities.

For smallholder farmers like Beatrice, who had depended on chemical fertilizers for years despite declining results, the switch to vermi liquid fertilizer marked a turning point - bringing renewed hope and the confidence to continue farming.

“In the previous years, we relied on chemical fertilizers, which destroyed the soil and left our crops weak with harvests uncertain. When we learned about vermi liquid fertilizer, it really encourage us farmers to grow more,” she recalls.

By providing organic fertilizer and climate-resilient maize seedlings, Kibmist helps farmers rebuild soil health naturally and improve yields. The result is improved yields, reduced dependence on chemical inputs and greater resilience to climate change.

The impact goes beyond the farm. 1,000 women and 1,000 youth have gained green skills and climate-smart farming knowledge, creating sustainable livelihoods and green jobs across Homa Bay and surrounding communities.

What began as a waste management challenge has become a model for sustainable agribusiness. Through partnerships and targeted financing, we’re supporting local enterprises to turn environmental challenges into measurable impact, helping smallholder farmers increase productivity, improve food security and drive sustainable growth in Africa’s agricultural sector.

This initiative is supported through Matching Grant Fund (MGF), as part of the Joint Action “Business Support Facility for Resilient Agricultural Value Chains”, co-funded by the European Union under the Samoa Agreement with the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ.