Every 12 August, the world marks International Youth Day. This year's theme, "Different Contexts, Common Aspirations," speaks to something young people across Kenya and the wider region already know: that circumstances differ from one county, one household, one value chain to the next, but the underlying goals rarely do. Dignity. A fair return on one's work. The chance to build something that lasts. Julia Wachira's story, in her own words, is one example of what that looks like in practice.
In parts of Laikipia County, where rainfall can be unpredictable, herbs have become a promising option for farmers looking to diversify their crops. The climate and growing conditions suit herbs such as rosemary, basil and mint, offering farmers an alternative to relying mainly on rain-fed crops like maize and beans.
For me, herb farming became that opportunity. I have been farming here for more than five years, most of that time under contract with a company that bought our produce at agreed prices.
On paper, that arrangement should have given us stability. In practice, it did not.
Prices that had been fixed on paper shifted without warning. Planning, investing and budgeting around an income that could change at any point became one of the hardest parts of farming as a business, not just a livelihood. This is a familiar story across Kenya's smallholder sector, where farmers who lack strong bargaining power often carry most of the risk in contract arrangements, even when contracts are meant to protect them. Post-harvest losses compound the problem: for fresh produce nationally, losses of between 30 and 50 percent are common, value that is lost before it ever reaches a buyer. Eventually, the company we supplied stopped operating altogether, and farmers who had built their planning around that market were left with produce, but no buyer.
It is a version of a challenge young farmers and entrepreneurs face across different parts of Kenya and the region, whatever the crop or the county: uncertain markets, limited bargaining power, and the risk of losing value that has already been produced. The details differ from one context to the next, but the underlying aspiration, to earn a stable, fair living from one's own work, is much the same everywhere.
That experience did not push me out of farming. It pushed me to think differently about what farming could be.
In November 2025, I established Afriherb Natures Ltd on a simple premise: that the answer to market uncertainty was not to keep looking for the next buyer, but to create more value from what we, as farmers, were already growing. I started researching what more could be done with herbs beyond selling them raw. That research opened my eyes to the health and wellness sector, and to processing, packaging and value addition as a way of building a market rather than waiting to be offered one.
Today, Afriherb Natures is diversifying into a range of wellness herbs, with plans to process and package them and to build reliable, contracted markets for the farmers who grow them. The intention is not simply to sell a product, but to give fellow farmers the confidence to produce, knowing there is a dependable buyer and a fair, stable price behind their work.
Alongside the herb business, I discovered a second opportunity closer to home, in our livestock communities. Many livestock farmers here discard beef tallow as waste. Looking into it further, and into the long-standing use of animal fats in food and wellness, I saw a product being thrown away that could instead be processed and sold. We are now working to turn that tallow, once treated as a by-product with no value, into a wellness product in its own right.
Afriherb Natures, then, is not only a herb business or a tallow business. It is built on a single idea: that some of the greatest opportunities are not found by looking for something new, but by looking again at what our communities already produce, and asking how more value can be
My group and the women farmers around me who have pushed me forward. I farm as part of Kapron Self-Help Group, based in Jikaze Village, Mukogodo East, and much of my grounding in sustainable, climate-smart agricultural practice has come through training under Rural Women Cultivating program, which has worked with women farmers in Laikipia and neighbouring arid and semi-arid counties on resilient production, market access and enterprise skills.
Networking with other herb farmers, within and beyond that program, has given me a space to learn, compare notes and think through new ideas in value addition rather than working these questions out alone. That kind of solidarity, young entrepreneurs and farmers learning from each other across groups and counties, is, I think, exactly what global conversations about youth development mean when they talk about partnership: not one solution handed down, but people building shared strength from wherever they each stand.
Five years ago, I was living in my parents' home. Today, I rent my own house and farm on my own land. That, to me, is not a small thing.
More than that, I have moved from being a farmer supplying someone else's business, to being an entrepreneur building my own. Through Afriherb Natures, I am creating opportunities for myself, but also, and just as importantly, for the farmers I work with and the wider community I am part of.
There is more I want to build. I am looking to partner with organic herb seed and seedling propagators, so that farmers in our value chain can access quality planting material and expand production with confidence. I also want to establish a high-quality herb drying facility, one that would allow us to process and preserve herbs properly, improve quality, cut post-harvest losses, and keep more of that value within our own community rather than losing it along the way.
For me, Afriherb Natures is the story of a journey from market frustration to value creation. And I believe the biggest opportunities are rarely about finding something entirely new. More often, they are about looking closely at what is already around us, and asking: how can we create more value from it?
Different young people, in different counties and different value chains, are answering that question in their own way. Mine happens to involve herbs and tallow in Laikipia. Somewhere else, it might be fish, textiles, or digital services. Different contexts, but, as this year's International Youth Day theme reminds us, common aspirations.
Afriherb Natures — from our farm to your wellness.
